


God's Opinion

by TwilightDeviant



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 21:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4153707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwilightDeviant/pseuds/TwilightDeviant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immortality stole every surprise and dulled ever wonder. It replaced them with monotony. Nothing was new. Everything had happened before.</p><p>How magnificent to be wrong about that. Their curse, if it should be called that, still had one novelty left for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My inevitable Forever mpreg fic. Yes, it was always going to happen. I just had to wait for the right idea. 
> 
> I’ve written a fic in the future. And I’ve written a fic in the past. So here’s one set in the present, more or less. And finally one with them together. No more pre-slash! Like one of my other fics, I began writing this before the finale and will thus ignore much of what happened. The big showdown and the implication that Jo’s in on it. Ya know.
> 
> Title is from the quote below. Thought it fit, given Henry’s general aversion to living life. Don’t quite know what God’s opinion on mpreg is but... here we are.

_“A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.”_  
\- Carl Sandburg

* * *

Adam was to his very core a difficult individual to understand. The greatest portion of him was desensitized to the world at large. And that part, the majority, was a high functioning lunatic. There were other pieces though, emotions that registered, however small. They were his weaker moments, but Henry favored them best.

The right music made him sentimental. Memories of war insufferable gave him not only anger against Germany’s long dead demons, but sympathy— no, empathy— towards Abraham. And for Henry, Adam carried the almost forgotten concept of curiosity, a great desire to memorize every moment of his life thus far.

If Henry had his druthers, there would be no obligation to understand the truly disturbing enigma of the man’s mind. But Adam, of course, would never allow for Henry to expel him from his life. He had his scent, so to speak, and there was something rather unnerving about knowing his stalker would never lose him, not for long.

It was, however, the ferocity of the hunt that made him bare his teeth. The big shows for Henry’s recognition quieted and then ceased once he actually earned it. All he wanted afterward, as he honestly confessed, was the companionship he had so rigorously earned.

Attention made him docile, or near enough.

At first, it was not something Henry wanted him to have. No one was more undeserving of achieving their goal. But his insides knew futility. It was a depressing realization.

The two of them were not going anywhere for a very long while. It would be foolish, immature almost, to ignore each other’s existence to the end of time. Adam assured Henry he would wait forever. And Henry knew he would. He knew that fact as well as he knew that one day he himself would give in. Pride in resistance meant so little when swallowed with the knowledge of an eventual surrender.

Henry stopped chasing him away. It ended well for no one.

Adam stayed around the shop more often, conditioning Henry to the inevitability of their eternity, as he said it. Dinners occurred when he stayed too late and propriety dictated a plate be set out. Any hour later than that meant only debates: historical, philosophical, theological. Abe had little patience for ‘stubborn old men arguing’ and often left them alone to it.

Then one late night led to one morning after. Adam called that an inevitability as well. Henry did not appreciate the idea that the man had planned their entire immortal lives together but promised to forget the matter so long as Adam did not tell Abe.

But Abe did not need telling, as he informed Henry himself at breakfast. Even if he had not heard them the night before, Adam’s covert flight down the fire escape that morning had been anything but.

“I’m staying out of it,” was all Abe said as he slid his dirty dishes over to Henry, ‘far too traumatized’ to wash them himself. “I am staying out of it.”

The physicality of their ‘relationship’ (for want of any better word) was a rather infrequent occurrence. They were both of them very far outside the grasp of their teenage years and unending cycles of lust. When they did withdraw to Henry’s room, the reason was often born from boredom, stress relief, or simply his response to Adam’s proposition being, “Why not?”

And that was how they proceeded in their unhealthy and indefinable relationship, not by loving, not by caring, but by co-existing. It was, as Adam asserted and Henry woefully acknowledged, all they had to look forward to.

—

“If it hasn’t cleared up by now it’s most likely fatal,” Adam commented. He laid upon Henry’s bed, voicing his unasked for opinions during distant bouts of retching. “Radiation poisoning perhaps. You really should kill yourself before you expose others to low doses of it.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Henry groaned bitterly. “And I haven’t been near any radiation.” After three continuous weeks of nausea he felt exhausted all over with sore stomach muscles from his heaving efforts. His head rested wearily against his arm as it hugged the toilet seat. To be told he could be dying sounded all too believable. Bare footsteps neared him, making hushed taps upon the bathroom tile. Adam stood there silently, watching him, regarding him. “If you kill me against my wishes,” Henry said, “I will be most cross.”

There were no words of reply. The sink ran with water and then stopped. A cool rag was placed on the back of his neck. It was a surprise.

“Thank you,” Henry murmured with a sigh, comforted by the damp cloth, relieved not to have pitiless hands choking him to his next death.

“You know, Henry,” he said, “sometimes it’s endearing how you insist on doing things the hard way.”

—

The sickness did not ebb by days, but by hours. It came with the dawn and left after achieving its goal of ruining Henry’s mornings. He was late for work only once, and that had been the worst of it.

Immortality scared Henry off the idea of doctors. After Lucas discovered the bubonic plague in Adam’s blood, he dare not risk them dredging up something equally illogical in his own veins. He was himself a doctor, of course, and after so many weeks of unending nausea with its limited other symptoms, Henry was more than ready to forget the old adage that any doctor treating himself had a fool for a patient.

He took four tubes of blood, preparing for a wide array of tests. The result of his overzealous withdrawal, however, was a woozy head and a need to lie down for half the afternoon. Yes, Henry was more than ready to be rid of his mystery illness. He only hoped it would not require his death in order to be corrected.

His basement laboratory was antiquated in many ways but modern in others. Henry could admit when contemporary technologies had the advantage, even if he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to that conclusion.

It was his aversion to and misunderstanding of electronics as a whole that made him second guess his result. Then there was a third guess and a fourth. The fifth was his undeniable nail in the coffin.

“Abraham!”

Henry sat silently at his desk. He had a cup of tea, his current lifeline to sanity, and he sipped on it while Abe paced back and forth in front of him.

“Pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“Pregnant?”

“Yes.”

They had been repeating the two words to each other for almost five minutes. Naturally there were many other questions to be asked, but they were really focusing on that one at the moment.

“Yeah, but…” Abe ran a hand through his hair and dropped it back to his side with a slap. “Pregnant?”

Henry took a drink of his tea, unaware of when it had gone tepid. “Yes.”

“How?” Oh good, one of them finally broke the loop.

“Honestly?” Henry took a heaving inhale that filled his lungs, stuck out his chest, and raised his shoulders. It was the precursor of a longwinded speech. He blew it all out in a big sigh instead. “I have no idea.” He set his teacup down with a little clink and began idly flipping through papers, some newly printed from the computer, others handwritten notes that showed their age at the corners.

“And, uh, by the way,” Abe said, “I really didn’t need to know enough about my dad’s sex life to find out he’s the one that... catches.”

“Pardon?”

“You know.” The hand gestures were crude yet subtle. Their intent registered after a second or two.

“Oh,” Henry exclaimed. “Oh! Oh, Abraham, don’t be so pigeonholing. We switch. Can you imagine the monotony of one position for the rest of your life— an immortal life at that?”

“Didn’t need to know that either,” Abe groaned, waving his hands to make Henry stop. “And you’re aware I would have preferred a younger sibling over sixty years ago, right— and with Mom?”

“Yes, Abe, that would certainly be the preferable option right now.” The wheels turned in Henry’s head but they were slippery with confusion and gathered no purchase. “How this could happen,” he muttered, “how my body facilitates this, I…” He was nothing. He thought nothing and could assume nothing.

“Well geez, Henry,” Abe said, “you’ve died and popped back up so many times. Even the Big Guy would get his wires crossed putting you back together again.”

“Trust me,” Henry huffed, puffing his cheeks and rolling his eyes, “I have often contemplated the horror of regenerating with misplaced or, God forbid, outright _missing_  organs. But _gaining_  one? It’s ludicrous. It’s absurd.” He rifled through his scribbled papers. Desperation told him it was all in there, waiting to be pieced together, but reality harbored no explanations so neat. “It defies the laws of science. Matter cannot simply just- just appear like that. Where did it come from?”

Abe leaned across the desk and took the papers from Henry’s hands. He organized them into a tidy stack, if out of order chronologically. “Just to be clear,” he said, “you are aware you give the laws of science a good what for regularly, right? I’m not just imagining the nearly 250-year-old man in my basement?” Henry groaned and nodded his head in a put upon way. “Good,” Abe said. He placed the papers on the desk and gave the top sheet a little pat. “Also I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing here... Dad.”

Perhaps Henry had been purposefully distracting himself with the logistics of it all, but by the time Abe reached the top of the stairs, the lasting implications, the physical ones, hit him— hard. “Oh, my god,” he exclaimed, “I’m pregnant!”

“There it is,” he heard Abe say.

Not lightly did Henry contemplate revealing his discovery to Adam. The optimistic theory of asexual reproduction was not far from his mind, but in the pit of his stomach he knew better. It was indeed Adam’s child.

What an easy performance it would be to hide that fact. He could tell Adam to give him space, a meager year of it. The man need never know the child’s true origin if they should meet.

But so too did Henry know how poorly that could end. Adam had pursued him for thirty years, tirelessly and recklessly, with people’s lives as collateral damage. If he took an interest in the child, if he suspected, how far would he go for proof?

“I’m pregnant,” Henry said over dinner, speaking to his bowl of soup. And just like that he destroyed the idea of retreat and secrecy, forever shutting the door and its decisions.

Abe excused himself, his chair legs scraping on the floor. Adam put down his spoon. It made no sound. He took the napkin from his lap and dabbed at each corner of his mouth, though it needed no such attention.

“And what made you suspect this?” he asked. There was no emotion in him and that alone was terrifying.

“I’m a doctor,” Henry scoffed. “I know the symptoms when I see them, no matter how... illogical their presence may be.”

“Mine?”

“Of course,” Henry said with offense.

“And yours?”

“Obviously.”

They stared at each other for a long while. Time was a farce and could not be counted nor trusted, not by them, its unreliable participants. Adam’s face did not and would not betray his thoughts. The man could deaden his eyes, draw his lips perfectly flat. His eyebrows were at rest. Henry felt intimidated under his gaze and hoped it did not show.

And then that straight mouth split, the edges curled up. Adam laughed. “Henry,” he said, “I think you’ve managed to surprise me.” It seemed such a trivial emotion, surprise, but Henry wondered the last time he had truly felt it. Not in thirty years, if he had to guess. “I didn’t anticipate this.” He continued to chuckle and it would die down until he thought of their predicament again.

“To be honest,” Henry admitted, “I had no idea how you’d take it.”

“You thought I would push you in front of a train to be rid of it perhaps?” That Adam could say such a thing with a smile still in place gave Henry chills. But he would not be dishonest and thus nodded his head. “No, Henry. No, let’s embrace fatherhood together.” He raised his glass and after a moment’s hesitation, Henry leaned over for a toast that felt more like a contract.

—

Adam did not move in so much as never leave. He had clandestine business to attend to most days, but he spent his evenings in the antique shop and his nights in Henry’s room, living out of a suitcase.

As Henry soon learned, having sex with Adam was one thing; sleeping with him was another. There was no affection nor tender positions that embraced. They would have been unwelcome anyway. Adam slept on his side of the bed, motionless and like the dead. Henry was the only movement, the only life after sleep. The one exception to any of it was when nightmares crept in like wafting smoke.

Between them there was a clear leader in horrors seen and deaths endured, but it was a contest with no winners. They discussed none of it. Henry did not want his own experiences dismissed as trifles by comparison, though he had no proof Adam would do so. The reciprocated silence was not something Henry questioned. Adam did not share and he was not asked to share.

When stuck in his nightmares, Adam would wake suddenly, screaming until he remembered himself and where he was. Then he sat for a long while on the edge of the bed, staring at a dark nothingness until the ghosts had gone. Henry was content to do the same, but for him there was always and without fail an offered glass of cool water, a comfort.

In his own way, Adam became protective. Mostly that meant he stopped playing so flippantly with Henry’s current life, forcing a temporary acknowledgment of mortality. Henry did the same and began reeducating himself on caution. Fewer risks, of course, meant fewer thrills, and that affected nothing so greatly as his work with the police.

“Henry,” Jo called as she walked into the morgue, “got a suspect on the body we found this morning. You coming?”

“Yes,” he said, excited for murder and mystery, “I’ll just need to grab my coat and scarf.” He was halfway through wrapping the thing around his neck when he remembered. “Oh, but I can’t!” he whined, a real groan of disappointment tagged on at the end.

“What, why?” Jo asked. “Too busy here?” She looked around the empty morgue. There were a few bodies in the fridge he could occupy himself with, but mostly it was a slow day for death.

“No, I,” he sighed, “I’m under express orders not to die.”

She chuckled through a smile pulled unevenly to one corner. It did sound like a joke after all. “Those are pretty good orders. Who’s giving them?”

“Well, me mostly, which would make them doctor’s orders, very high authority.” She was still smiling, so it was obvious she was not taking anything he said seriously. It was far from surprising, really. Jo had come to know him as a risk taking daredevil. His sudden retreat from such behavior sounded ridiculous. “I can,” he slowly informed, “still come to crime scenes. I can examine the bodies and bring them back here. But detective work, I’m afraid that chapter is behind me for now. It was always outside of my job description anyway.”

The amusement on her face fell during his speech and plummeted at the end. “Oh, my god,” she said, surprised, “you’re serious.”

“Very serious I’m afraid.” He unwrapped his scarf and hung it back up.

“Okay,” she said, “do I get a reason?”

“Ah, well.” He paused. There was lying and then there was the truth. Henry settled for a middle ground. “I am... adopting... a child.” It sounded like a lie if ever there was one, mostly for the way he spoke it like a question, unsure as he said it. He cleared his throat and repeated himself, more certain that time.

Jo nodded her head. “Congratulations, I guess.” She was awkwardly unsure of what to think or say, and Henry did not blame her. “Like all by yourself or…”

“With my,” he coughed, “partner.” He dug himself deeper into the pit of half-truths.

“Wow,” Jo said, “okay, yeah. Didn’t even know you were dating somebody.” She did not seem surprised by his implication of a homosexual relationship. Henry wondered if that was the effect of New York living or if he simply gave off that impression. “Pretty serious though, huh?”

“Yes,” Henry said, looking first at his shoes then boldly to her face again. “You could say I really see myself with him for the rest of my life. And we are of that age to settle down,” as long as one focused solely on physical appearance and not numerical standing. Though by that standard they were more than ready.

“Henry Morgan,” she said, “the man of a thousand secrets.”

“You have no idea,” he grinned, forcing the expression.

“So do I get to meet the guy or what? He ever come around?”

“Oh, heavens no,” Henry said. What a disaster that would be, with Adam an unpredictable wildcard through it all. “He is a very busy man. And not very good with people. And honestly more secretive than I am.”

Jo laughed and calmed him down with gentle hand movements. “Easy boy. You don’t want me to meet him,” she shrugged, “I won’t meet him.”

“It’s not that,” Henry assured her. “You wouldn’t _want_  to meet him.”

“I cannot even begin to imagine what he’s like if you think he’s weird,” Jo said before immediately backtracking. “Not that... _you’re_  weird. It’s just, you know, uh... You know, uh…”

“Detective,” Henry said, “I am, without doubt, very ’weird’. And all the weirder for whom I’m... dating.”

—

Adam’s hand felt heavy.

Henry was laid out in bed with his arms folded up beneath his head, stretching his torso. With his stomach pulled so taut he could tell. It was small but it was there, or at least it had been until it was covered by a hand.

“Once you know,” Adam commented, “it’s obvious.”

Henry hummed. “Most things are.” His sickness was the biggest mystery solved, abating as time and trimesters marched on. Outside of that he was not so free of vanity to say his growing stomach had not bothered him. But even that now had its reason.

“When you’ve been alive as long as I have,” Adam said, “all wonders lose their appeal. You recognize childbirth not as a miracle, but as a natural act that happens every day, billions upon billions of times over.”

“Oh, please do go on,” Henry implored with heavy sarcasm. “I would truly hate it if I felt accomplished for having done this.”

“You Henry,” Adam smirked, “you force banality to the truest potential of its splendor.” It was a unique compliment, odd and completely loyal to all Henry had come to expect, to settle for. He did not deconstruct the world for Adam. He did not build it anew so that tired eyes could look upon it once more with childlike wonder. He only brightened what was already there. It was enough for Adam. “The very odds,” he said, “they stagger me.”

“Yes,” Henry agreed, voice hushed as he thought aloud. He stared at the ceiling through eyes that took leave from observation and thus saw naught but blurs of white. “Yes, they are... goodness, incalculable really. For instance, what are the chances that matter, energy, tissue would align so that I was reborn with the necessary requirements? How long have I had the ability? Or, contrarily, is it unique only to this regeneration? If so, then consider the sheer fluke that we happened to be sexually active during it. The odds, yes, they’re astronomical, I dare to say.”

“Like I said,” Adam moved his hand in slight movements, fingertips conquering every inch of raised skin, “a real blessing to the mundane.”

Henry took one hand from behind his head and placed it over Adam’s. The bottom hand turned up, grabbing Henry’s, penetrating fingers with his own, squeezing past the mark of gentle. “You really like me, don’t you?” Henry asked. “You like me as much as you are able.”

“Yes.” It was a quiet word followed by a silence that dragged like tired feet, stumbling through the exhaustion of time until at last its destination was reached. It dropped at the foot of speech, one sentence more. “As much as I am able.”

“You know I don’t feel as strongly for you,” Henry told him, feeling cruel but obligated to say it. “I just... I can’t. You’re,” a monster, he could have said. Unlovable, too far gone, he could also have said.

“I know,” Adam replied. And truly he did, for there was no suddenly realized sorrow in his admittance. “But you share my curse. You let me near you. That’s all I need, Henry.”

There were a number of reasons that Henry felt compelled to pity the black hearted man in his bed. Adam’s desperation was one. His loneliness had been a bottomless pit. To it, Henry could empathize only partially. For it, he had only a fool’s hope that Adam would not destroy their tranquility, forcing Henry to expel him as his namesake was from Eden.

“When I’m with you,” Henry spoke, “the emotions are muted, muddled, as if I’m looking through water at a distortion of the real thing. And the words, your words, it’s like they’re chosen specifically to lack passion, as though you’re afraid to show it, or have completely forgotten how it works. Speaking with you,” he sighed, “is like relearning human interaction altogether, but more finely tuned. It’s challenging and irritating, but also there’s... I don’t know, a sort of rewarding satisfaction at the end of a breakthrough. What I mean to say,” Henry continued, finding the point in his rambling, “is that I am, well, trying to find things to like.”

“Henry,” Adam said, and for a moment nothing followed. “Henry, Henry, Henry,” he repeated, seemingly infatuated by the name alone. “Are you aware, Henry, that I imagined you? Oh, it was vague at first, practically nothing. I used to wonder if there was someone like me. I’d think about the life we would lead, the conversations we would have. At times you were even a woman, for lack of any evidence to the contrary. And then one day... there was proof. I knew you existed. It was the most,” he fumbled for the word, “exciting thing imaginable. Our meeting was, of course, delayed.” Henry waited for some sour word spoken against Abigail but there came none. Adam knew better. “For thirty years I imagined you again— but better, more... vividly. I wondered how old you were. Had we met without knowing? You were pure potential. But then I found you.” He exhaled with nostalgic relief. “I found you and everything became so concrete. You were no long possibilities. You could be only... Henry.”

“And did I measure up,” Henry asked, “to any of your expectations?”

“There were those you exceeded,” Adam said, beginning with the positive. “Others you failed at. I never thought you would be so young, a child. You’re still innocent,” he thought, “but on that precipice of dying. I think one great shove would do it.”

“I have killed a man because you made me,” Henry reminded him, no longer angry but not happy either.

“And for that I have apologized,” Adam said. “You came through it though. You are as you were before. However I think you would do well to remember: there are many deaths for the body, Henry, but they are surprisingly finite. The soul... it can die in ways unnumbered.” There was no doubt that Adam had faced so many of both. Henry prayed often for mercy from the first, but more he feared the second, those innumerable deaths to his heart until he became Adam.

“And now I have disappointed you,” Henry surmised. “You must look for reasons to like me as I do for you.”

“No,” Adam said. “You could never disappointment me, Henry. Only,” he pushed his free hand against Henry’s stomach, heavy and firm, “surprise me.”

There were worse ways to spend one’s day off than lying in bed, talking about everything and nothing.

—

Henry had a very strong stomach. ‘Cast-iron’ had been used on numerous occasions by those envious, both within his profession and outside of it. There was, however, something about the morgue’s recent drowning victim— bloated from three weeks of ocean water— that made him more than happy to jump ship. His morning sickness had mostly gone, but there were those more foul bodies he passed to Lucas as ‘training exercises’. And then it was always nice to have the excuse of a body in the field as an escape. Murder was the benefactor of his newest secret.

He had one hand on the station door when it opened seemingly on its own. Then he saw Adam on the other side, pulling the handle as he pushed.

“What are you doing here?” Henry groaned.

Adam held up a familiar leather case. “You left your tools in the lab after last night’s cardiac dissection,” he said. “I believe pregnancy has made you... scatterbrained, Henry.”

“Abe could have brought these,” Henry insisted as he snatched the tools away.

“He could have,” Adam agreed. “He wanted to. But I thought I’d drop by.”

“Yes, this is certainly where you belong.” Henry looked around at the many policemen and their shining handcuffs. “Perhaps you had better leave before someone agrees.”

“Not just yet,” Adam said, and he began adjusting Henry’s scarf with the gentle, doting hands of a lover. He was putting on a show. “Your partner is headed this way. I think she wants to meet me.”

Henry glanced over and, yes, Jo was walking directly towards them, curiosity abound within her. “Leave!” he ordered.

“Who shall I be?” Adam questioned, thinking out loud. “Lewis Farber?” His expression softened to the amiable psychiatrist Henry had met during their first face to face introduction. His voice climbed higher then slipped into that timorous English accent. “Now, and do be honest with me, Henry, would you date Doctor Farber?”

“Lewis Farber is married!” Henry hissed.

“Oh, no, no, no. Only in photographs, no documentation,” he said so sweetly. “It helped to fit in at the office. You understand. And if you’ll take care to remember,” he chuckled, “I wasn’t actually in any of the pictures myself. Do you remember that, Henry?”

“And when was the last time Lewis went to work?” Henry questioned.

“Fair point,” Adam conceded. His tone returned to a deep and unsettling rumble, no one accent to be discerned. “I did enjoy being around... like-minded individuals for a time, but that vocation was only ever a day job while I stayed in New York for you.”

“Leave,” Henry said again.

“She’s been distracted,” Adam said, and how he knew without turning his head was puzzling. But Henry could see her there, stuck in discussion with an officer. “You’d better think quick, Henry. What’s your ideal man like, someone you could really raise a child with?”

“Certainly not you.” Jo patted the officer on the shoulder and walked past him. Henry panicked, knowing Adam took sadistic pleasure in imposing his presence, knowing he could only play along with the man’s manipulations. “Do you have any false identities named Adam?” he whispered. Jo was so close. “It might keep me from slipping up.”

“I’ll make the paper trail later,” he promised.

“Henry,” Jo said, “ready to go?” She eyed Adam once, twice, waiting for the introduction.

“Yes, um,” Henry blanked on speech, fear of the unknown gripping him tight, squeezing. Who knew what Adam’s mind was creating. He was Doctor Frankenstein, stitching together a man through mediums of thought and personality, instead of decayed rotting flesh. For better or for worse, if Adam was prepared or not, Henry introduced him. “This is... Adam, by the way. My... partner. Adam, this is—”

“Detective Martinez,” the man interrupted. “Yes, Henry’s told me all about you.” His accent was English, but the meekness of Lewis Farber it was not. He was authoritative, eye contact all the way with a handshake that Henry observed as almost too firm.

“I wish I could say the same,” Jo told him. “He’s barely mentioned you.”

“I think we can both agree,” Adam said, “Henry’s a very personal individual.”

“You’re not wrong,” she laughed. “You have really got to work on that.” She put a hand on Henry’s arm and he observed a change in Adam, very subtle really, more of a twitch.

“But then I’m sure,” Adam continued, “he simply respects my privacy.” There was a hanging addition that said, ‘More than yours.’ It went unvoiced and yet understood by all.

“So uh,” Jo paused, floundering under a stranger’s intensity, “you look kind of familiar. Have we met before?”

“No,” he said, “no, I think I simply have one of those faces.”

“And, obligatory couple question here, how is it you guys met exactly? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Not at all,” Adam said, his words crawling out through a disturbing and fake smile. “I’m in the business. Antiques,” he clarified. “I’m somewhat of an expert on various time periods and came here to authenticate an artifact, very old, late 18th century.”

“Wow, coming all the way from... England— I’m guessing? That’s some antique.”

“Yes, it’s a very special piece. Very important to me personally,” Adam said. Henry wanted to roll his eyes but the action would have been too out of place. “There are only two like it in the whole world. Naturally I leapt at the chance to see it and,” he looked purposefully at Henry, “own it.”

Jo nodded her head slowly, knowing she was missing something but unsure of what it was. “Okay then,” she said. “Another one really into antiques.”

“Yes,” Adam stated pretentiously, “I suppose that’s what Henry actually needs: someone he can relate to, someone with an interest in history and other intellectual pursuits. You understand, I’m sure.”

“I think I’m starting to,” Jo said, though her comment spoke only of her budding understanding of Adam and his personality. “Henry, I’m gonna go ahead to the car. Adam,” she offered her hand, “it was... nice to meet you.”

“Yes, you as well,” Adam said. He took her hand and turned it over before placing a kiss on the back, a mockery of old world charm. “Why, you’re... almost as beautiful as Henry described.”

Jo pursed her lips. “Uh-huh.” And instead of rising to Adam’s low-grade passive aggression she instead made a gesture indicating she would be waiting outside.

“Rude!” Henry shouted at him, a hushed scolding stuck in the volume of a whisper. “Unspeakably rude.”

“I was simply,” Adam tilted his head, “establishing our new history.”

“You know very well what you were doing,” Henry said. “And it’s insulting that you should think so little of Jo. She won’t ‘steal’ me from you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I think of her only as a friend. Furthermore, I did not appreciate the implication that you ‘own’ me.”

Adam chuckled at that. “Don’t worry, Henry,” he said. “I’m not opposed to an open relationship. Forever is a long time to be monogamous, after all. But let’s wait for the new to wear off first.” He leaned in for a kiss and the prying, expectant eyes peeking around corners and computer monitors forced Henry to comply. “Was that so hard?” he whispered, only for them.

“Leave,” Henry said for a third time. “Or feel free to stay. Help yourself to a nice cell. I, however, am going now.”

The car was waiting at the curb when Henry stepped outside. He had no sooner sat down than he began apologizing.

“I am so sorry,” he said. “You have my most sincere apologies. Believe it or not, that was civil for him.”

She snorted. “Don’t worry about it. Honestly, I’m flattered.”

“Flattered?” Henry questioned. “How on earth could one feel flattered after spending even a moment with him?”

“He thinks I’m competition,” Jo said. “It is flattering.” She looked over her shoulder before pulling them into traffic. “But seriously? That guy has got his work cut out for him.”

“Whatever do you mean, detective?” If anything, Henry was the one at risk of exhausting himself.

“Oh, come on,” she scoffed. “Like you don’t know. Like the grooming and the charming personality and the... scarves just happen. You, Henry Morgan, are an attractive man, even with the recent pounds you’ve put on. And if you’re going both ways, Adam had better lose his jealous streak or be prepared to fight off the entire island of Manhattan.”

“Please,” Henry begged, “don’t give him any ideas. He’s just crazy enough to try it.”

“Wow, how long have you guys been married now, forty years?” she quipped. “You know you don’t have to stay with the guy if you don’t like him, right?”

“No, it’s,” Henry shook his head, “it’s a joke, is all. I’m joking. That’s how we have our fun.”

Jo hummed. “Whatever works for you, I guess.”

They drove and then they stopped, catching many red lights. Whilst idling at one Henry found the nerve to ask a rather awkward question. “It’s not,” he cleared his throat, “ _so_  obvious is it?”

“That your boyfriend’s crazy jealous— with emphasis on the crazy? Yeah, a little bit.”

“No, not that,” Henry said. “The... weight gain.”

“Oh.” She grinned. “Don’t worry, Henry. It’s... I don’t know, cute. You got the guy. Now you get to unwind, settle down, put on a few. It’s domestic.”

“I suppose that is one way of looking at it,” he sighed, “‘domestic.’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had already written the scene with Jo and Adam when I remembered that she had met him briefly when he was pretending to be Lewis. My bad. So I did throw a quick line about her saying he looked familiar. But it’s been over a year for them by the time this happens, and a contrasting personality goes a long way so… Shh. Just go with it.


	2. And

Henry endured the little jibes about his growing figure for as long as he was able. Apparently the numerous people at the morgue and police station took a selfish glee in the idea that even one part of him was less than perfect. It was all in good fun, really, but Henry was atypically moody enough to take it somewhat more seriously. And since he could show no outward sign of aggravation, the jokes showed no sign of cessation. Unfortunately neither did his weight gain. Henry decided to cut his losses while he was still ahead.

The saved vacations he never took were added to the paternity leave he requested. He went home.

But home, as he soon realized, was very boring.

Abe was less than appreciative when Henry reappraised some of the antiques ‘more accurately.’ And he was exasperated to see, as he put it, ‘a seven month pregnant old man up on a ladder dusting.’ Henry was forced into an early retirement from the shop.

Adam came and went, a presence most irregular. Sometimes he made it back for dinner. Other times he said he would be gone two days, only to disappear for two weeks instead. Henry did not know what business he conducted, and he swore to himself he would never ask.

Whenever Adam was gone on his more lengthy tours he always returned with a gift, given only after a bantering comment about how much Henry had changed, grown.

It was after one particularly long disappearance (closer to a month than any other measure) that he returned to his biggest surprise at Henry’s size yet.

A big round stomach stuck out with little possibility that it could be anything other than what it was. Henry had quarantined himself to the house for fear of public jokes or suspicion, not that the average person would consider it an option. Still, attention was always the opposite of what he wanted. He had it now though as Adam stared him down, dark eyes surveying every inch of him and finding humor in what he saw.

“Have you entertained the possibility of twins?” he said before handing over his gift, ever loyal to his custom.

Henry unwrapped the brown parcel with more of a morbid curiosity than excitement. _Divina Commedia_ , he read, handwritten in its native Italian. The book was not so old to be thought an original, but it may have beaten him out by a decade or two. “Are you aware that I find gifts alluding to the afterlife a taunt more than anything?” Henry asked. “And no, it’s just the one.”

“And how would you know that?” Adam questioned, intrigued.

“I have my methods,” Henry answered, sitting high from his ability to hold something over Adam’s head.

“Antique sonogram machine in the basement,” Abe said. “Thing’s from the seventies at least.”

“Abraham,” Henry groaned. “I do like being mysterious on occasion.”

“No, you love it,” Abe said, “all the time. And quite frankly I’m sick of it.”

“It is a problem,” Adam agreed.

“Oh, no,” Henry said. “No, no, no. _You_  do not get to reprimand _me_  for being secretive. You, Adam, are by far the most mysterious person I’ve ever met. You take delight from hiding in the shadows, oftentimes literally.”

Adam only shrugged for it was true. “And just what did you see with your own personal sonogram machine?” he inquired.

“Well,” Henry said, “obviously the quality is nothing to write home about, but I did see her there, just her.”

“‘Her’?”

“Ah, yes,” Henry replied, “once again it’s not the best picture, you understand. I could be completely, absolutely wrong. But it looks... well, like a girl.”

“And does that excite you?” Adam asked. “Or perhaps disappoint?”

“She’s seemingly healthy,” Henry said. “With all the many variables and anomalies involved you can see where that’s all I really care to be excited about.” He smiled fondly thinking of the steady rhythm of her small heart, a song stuck in his head. “And never could I be disappointed. After Abraham it might be nice, I think, raising a girl.”

“To bluff such a big game with the ladies, you know nothing about women,” Abe criticized. “I pity her already.”

“I wasn’t talking to you!” Henry shouted, unaware Abe had even been listening. “Go and finish your risotto.”

Adam sat beside him on the sofa and touched with a bare greed. “Wonderful,” he said. “How long now?”

It could not be judged if he lost track due to disinterest to the cause, or if it was from an overall inability to chart time anymore. “Well,” Henry thought, “she— presuming it is a she— grows normally, or at least it looks like she does. By that schedule, three more weeks maybe. Though I will want to deliver earlier than when due. I can’t imagine if my body attempted some bastard form of labor.”

“It certainly has the potential to be excruciating,” Adam remarked.

Henry tapped his foot against the floor for awkward distraction. “Undoubtedly. So,” and he could not believe he was about to say the words stalling on his tongue, “it will be cesarean obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“And I can’t very well do it myself.”

“You could.”

“Yes, I’d rather… not, thank you all the same,” Henry said with a grimace. “And for equally obvious reasons the hospital is out of the question.”

“I’m not so sure. It might be fun,” he quipped. “I would certainly enjoy watching you try to explain.”

“For God’s sake, Adam,” Henry groaned. “Will you shut up for one moment? You have a very fine understanding of the human body and more than adequate skill with a blade— though I don’t care to think about the practice you’ve had to get there... You know what I’m asking.”

The man smiled a creepy grin that distorted the thin line of his lips and folded wrinkles around his eyes. He looked as though he had just gotten everything he wanted. “Of course, Henry,” he said. “I’m honored to be the one cutting you open.”

“Don’t be too flattered,” Henry said. “As I just made very clear, you’re my only choice.”

“I do admit a curiosity,” he confessed, “a real desire to see what you have going on in there.”

“What, the baby?” Henry questioned.

“Babies are ordinary, more often than not the same. No, Henry, I want to examine what’s supporting her.” The tender stroke of his hand on Henry’s stomach picked up its pace, pressing down in its wide rotations. “I don’t suppose you’d let me remove it? I’m sure the curiosity is just... eating you up as well, Doctor Morgan.”

“I’m not above wondering, no,” Henry admitted. “But neither do I want such major surgery. There’s no telling what all it’s attached to in there.”

“I’d keep you alive until it was out,” Adam promised.

“I don’t want to die at all,” Henry argued. He sat up straighter and pushed Adam’s hand off him. “Unless there are simply too many complications, I’d like to live through it.”

“Why do you insist on clinging to every life so stubbornly?” Adam sighed.

“Not all of us face death with the very definition of apathy as you do, Adam.”

“But you’re immortal,” he said, confused. Was it truly beyond him to so much as remember the terror of death, that universal fear which united humanity? Adam broke the law, of course, but could he not even imagine?

“I still fear death,” Henry told him. “Every time, be it voluntary or murder, I’m... scared to know it’s coming.”

Adam nodded his head. His eyes stared into nothing and his expression was pensive. “I understand.” Henry saw that as the lie it was.

—

Infection was to be prevented, if possible, but not something obsessively regulated. All supplies were sterilized. All surfaces were cleaned. Gloves were worn by both Adam and Abe. The center of his laboratory made a decent operating room for it all. Henry had certainly worked in worse through the years.

Adam had seen his bare stomach every day he was present, touching it and studying it within the confines of Henry’s bedroom. It was Abe that had his moment of surprise when Henry slowly removed his shirt.

“Wow,” he said, looking Henry over. Parts of him had swollen with an omnipresent weight gain, but mostly it was contained to his stomach. And it was one thing to catch a glimpse when Henry raised his arms in a sweater too small. It was another to see the flat line of his chest suddenly expand and conform over that rounded shape, covered in tight skin that split in long dragging marks like a scar. “Okay then.”

“The boxers stay,” Henry said, already feeling horribly obligated to cover himself. His hands hung in the air, halfway between dangling at his sides or blocking out his stomach.

“Of course,” Adam allowed.

“Like we haven’t all seen you naked,” Abe muttered, “some of us against our wills.” He grumbled something about ‘nudist immortals’ that made Henry chuckle but feel awkward all the same. It was rather unfortunate that his son always had to be the one to give him clothes and a ride from the river.

Henry sat on his medical exam table. Adam held a syringe. He flicked it expertly, knocking all the pesky air bubbles to the top and plunging them out. “You’ll take a fifty foot fall into a taxi with no hesitation,” Adam remarked, “and yet you make me administer a shot before even the epidural.”

“Come off it now,” Henry scoffed. “Not even you like pain.”

“I like certain types of pain,” Adam said, and there was a wicked glint in his eye.

“Oh,” Henry hummed, raising his eyebrows. “That certainly is interesting to know for later, isn’t it?”

“If you don’t mind moving along,” Abe interrupted. “You’re about to lose your nurse, who is about to lose his lunch.”

Adam rubbed Henry’s lower back with iodine that tingled from the cool air. The shot itself was nothing to Henry’s pain tolerance and a part of him did not doubt Adam’s assertion that it could have been skipped altogether.

They waited. When Henry felt numb enough, another needle was picked up, much larger.

“Now,” Henry said, “you’re going to want to place it right between my L1 and— Ah!”

Adam stuck him quickly and with precision. Henry barely felt the stab, but it was surprising all the same. “Please, Henry,” he shoved in deeper, coaxing the needle between his spine, “no backseat doctoring.”

The drugs muted sensation, giving Henry only a detached feeling as Adam slid a catheter inside the needle and began administering the real medication through it.

He breathed a sigh as total numbness filled him, even if it did walk hand in hand with lethargy. “The both of you truly have no idea to the unending pressure this has been putting on my pelvis. I’d forgotten what it felt like _not_  to be in pain. God, I feel human again.”

“You can lie back,” Adam said. To his credit, he seemed to be taking the matter seriously. Apparently even he knew the right moments for it. Henry was grateful. It was one less matter to worry about. “Now how well do you handle shock, Henry? Will you need the little curtain?”

“I’d rather have it, yes,” he said, “please. One never really gets used to seeing their own blood and organs on display.”

“Yes they do,” Adam disagreed.

“I’m not doing this with you right now,” Henry said. He was already too tired. “Abraham, a hand please,” he asked.

With Abe’s help Henry managed to lie down flat. Over his distended stomach he could barely see what Adam was at work on. There was the clatter of metal tools upon a metal tray, a sound he knew so well. Then Adam held one up for his own examination, and Henry was confused by what he saw.

It was a scalpel like any other with its stainless steel handle. The blade, though, the blade was so different. It was black, ominous, and jagged.

“ _What_  is that?” Henry demanded, shying away from the unconventional instrument.

“You have your tools, Henry,” he held the scalpel aloft, letting its black edges sever the light so glamorously, “and I have mine.”

“Yes, but what is it made of?” Henry asked, eyeing it with hesitation and fear.

“Obsidian,” Adam answered. “It has a thinner and less ragged edge than steel. I enjoy using it in my work. Some people can’t even feel when it cuts.”

“Must you?” Henry asked. He did not altogether doubt the sharpened edge, however the roughly hewn sides did not inspire his confidence.

“Yes.” There would be no arguing.

“Promise you’ll let me look at it later then,” Henry said, for he did so enjoy new discoveries, even if they brought apprehension upon him.

“A little too precise for your butchering of corpses,” Adam told him. “But I’ll not stop your curiosity if you wish to indulge.”

Then Abe positioned the requested curtain across Henry’s chest and he could see no more.

“So how you wanna do this?” Abe asked. He was shuffling from foot to foot, nervous to this lesser danger despite the many times he had watched Henry die.

“I will make an incision and remove the child,” Adam explained. His steel nerves kept the room grounded. “And then, because of his really very annoying insistence on survival, I will stitch Henry back up.”

“Yes, thank you,” Henry said.

“Don’t mention it,” Adam replied. “The time I spend in repair will give me a more than ample opportunity to examine those insides of yours.”

“I only ask that you _try_  and remember basic human ethics,” Henry instructed. He was still, regardless of what was said, convinced that Adam had every intention of dawdling around inside his abdomen.

“Really Henry?” Abe said.

“What?”

“Why would you wanna go through recovery like all us other schmucks?” he questioned. “It’s no fun.”

“Forgive me for the trouble,” Henry implored so sarcastically, “but occasionally I do like to play that I’m human.”

“And you don’t remember the great time I went through when I had my appendix out, is that it?”

“What I remember,” Henry chuckled, “is your mother and I waiting on you hand and foot, despite your being a grown man.”

“Ah,” Abe hummed. “I get it now. I see what you’re up to. Well, buddy, you get one day of labor out of me a year and that’s Father’s Day. If you’re gonna do this the hard way, I defer all responsibility to this guy,” he pointed at Adam.

“Oh, I’d just as soon kill him,” the man stoically confessed.

“Abraham, don’t be ridiculous,” Henry said. “I’m doing this because I’d really rather not die.”

“Nope,” Abe said, “I’ve heard enough. You,” he snapped his fingers at Adam, “cut him.”

Henry huffed dramatically as Abe stepped around to stand beside Adam. It was intimidating to say the least, seeing only the tops of their heads like he was.

Adam’s eyebrows dropped in concentration. Henry took a breath. He felt anxious even through the clouding drugs.

“Wow,” Abe observed with a quiet whistle, “that is sharp.” Thus was Henry’s confirmation that Adam had begun.

The entire affair took no time, a few minutes, for all the importance it held. First there was the cut, a few of them for different layers of tissue, then a metallic clang as Adam sat his scalpel down and took up another tool.

There was a definite pulling sensation but it was faint, like a story heard as hearsay and not experienced firsthand.

Abe made a few noises of surprise and observation, but the most prevalent sound in the room came from its newest occupant. The cry was pitiful yet strong, a stuttering bleat like some shrieking little lamb. Henry laughed to hear it, relieved.

“Congratulations,” Adam said, “you were right about it being a girl.”

“A girl,” Henry exhaled with a grin. “A girl.”

He could see so little, but Abe was flapping a blanket and Adam was turning around to face him, no doubt handing her off. There was a brief delay taken for examination, toes and fingers counted, immediate health assessed.

“You want I should wash her off,” Abe asked, “or...?”

“No, no,” Henry said. “In a moment, Abe. In a moment. Bring her here, please.”

Abe wrapped her tight and brought her around. Henry saw her, took in that little red face poking out amidst a cloud of white. He fell victim to love in an instant, down into its unending depths with no chance of ever climbing back out again.

She was a tiny thing, covered in blood and fluids and completely unhappy about it. “Shh, shh,” Henry whispered, running his long finger over her chubby cheeks, around that wailing mouth. “What’s wrong now? Shh.” She quieted somewhat but refused to abandon her sporadic cries entirely.

“Mazel tov,” Abe said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna wash the little lady off before this dries.”

“Oh, do be quick,” Henry pleaded, watching them go.

Adam laughed, but Henry could not see him, crouched below the curtain as he was. ‘I knew you’d be the clingy sort, Henry,” he said, “still living with Abe like you do.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” Henry apologized, “but I just so happen to love my children.” And what a fantastic word that was: children, a marvelous plurality.

“When we have a name,” Adam told him, “I’ll make all the necessary paperwork. Your forgeries leave the trained eye wanting.”

“She has a name actually,” Henry informed. “Abraham and I came up with one for either sex.”

“You wouldn’t exclude a man from something so important, would you?” Adam said.

Henry scoffed. “Oh, like you honestly care.”

“I could,” he defended. It was difficult to judge sincerity in a man who so often banished emotion from his speech. “Do not doubt my fascination.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry said, blinking his eyes in a daze. “I- I didn’t think you would care enough to contribute. That was... rude of me to assume.”

He hummed in agreement, validating Henry’s guilt. “But I’m sure it’s a nice name.”

“We could change it,” Henry offered, “or at least discuss it.”

“Henry,” Adam said, “tell me the girl’s name.”

“Very well,” Henry smiled. “It’s Hannah.”

“Hannah,” Adam repeated. “Hannah, Hannah, Hannah... Hannah Morgan.” He laughed. “It sounds self-serving, Henry. I’d hate to think you were succumbing to vanity.”

“If you think she’s intended as my junior,” Henry contested, “I’ll have you know the name was mostly Abe’s idea. I just happened to like it.”

“You let the boy name his sister,” Adam commented, wry amusement clear in him, “adorable.”

Henry heard a squelching sound and felt that vague pull. He had no doubts his insides were a veritable playground for Adam at the moment.

“Basic human ethics!” Henry reminded. If he were honest with himself, however, he was almost past the point of care. His brain was foggy and distracted, trying its best to focus on a thousand things and barely pinning down a handful. He was very tired, justifiably so.

“It’s,” Adam thought, “interesting, so like a woman, but different also.”

“Have you even begun stitching?” Henry demanded.

Adam paused, drawing out a guilty silence, before saying, “I will now.” If Henry bled out, it would have been only too predictable. Adam had been forced to exercise caution for seven months. He was no doubt itching to kill Henry, to realize that proof of his immortality once more.

The ever present cry in the room— an infant’s displeasure to her bath— gradually became louder until Abe was beside him again, holding Hannah to his chest.

He exhaled, quick and airy, to see her. It was a dream he was too afraid to let himself experience. His hand hesitated. He had touched her only a moment before, but surely this time he would wake before contact.

He took an optimist’s chance. He was rewarded.

“Oh, Abraham, I love her,” Henry whispered. He grabbed her small hand and it wrapped around his thumb so strongly. “I love her so much.” He kissed her fingers over and over. “I love her more than anything.” He pressed her fist to his stubbled cheek, delighting in the tangible feel. “That is,” he interrupted himself, feeling horrible, “not more than you, of course. Never more. I love you both, equally. I swear.”

“At ease, Pops,” Abe said. ”I know what you mean.”

Henry moved his hand to cradle her small head, that red face still scrunched with unpleasant confusion. He felt an emotional dam burst, one surging rush of hormones and he was crying. “I should never have denied your mother this,” he said quietly. “It was unkind of me, unfair of me.”

“It’s all right,” Abe promised, trying his best to comfort Henry, but there was little to be done for illogical hysterics. “I was enough kid for one lifetime,” he joked. “Mom was happy. Don’t you worry about that.”

“Yes,” Henry sniffed, dragging his hand across his tired face. “Yes, of course.” Still he felt himself a cruel man, dealing denials but reveling in his own hypocritical fulfillment.

He wanted to sit up, to hold Hannah outright, but he was forced to lie still as Adam patched him up. More than that Henry felt so exhausted. He could have gone to sleep that very moment. In fact, he decided he would. It was his right after all. And Hannah would still be there when he woke.

Abe, the chronic bachelor, knew little about infant care himself, but he did insist on his ability to manage a bottle at least. Henry trusted him to take care of her while he was out.

The last thing he saw was Adam administering another round of morphine to keep him comfortable.

Henry slept. It was a wonderful sleep, deep and all consuming. There were no dreams, only a blanketing nothing that gave him rest and peace of mind. He enjoyed every moment of it until he woke up in the river.

He swam to shore spitting water and curses.

Adam was parked on the pier behind the fence, leaning against the hood of Abe’s car. He tossed Henry a towel when he was close enough. “You favor the East River, Henry,” he said conversationally. “Are you aware?”

Henry made quick use of the towel, and when he felt dry enough he threw it back at Adam, hitting him in the face. Then he grabbed at the waiting stack of clothes. “Not entirely,” he denied, “I once sprang up in a pond in Central Park.”

“You were out for almost three hours before you finally died,” Adam informed him. Henry did not care how long his death took, but it did help keep track of time. “Your tolerance was higher than I expected.”

“Where’s Hannah?” Henry asked. He stuck his bare and dirty feet through a pair of slacks and pulled them up. He was so angry he missed ringing the buttonhole twice.

“With her big brother,” Adam answered, “obviously. He’s taking well to the role, Henry. I think you’ll enjoy watching them together.” Henry’s fuming silence left a gap which Adam contentedly continued to fill, saying the nice, placating things he thought would want to be heard. “Before leaving, I did complete a more thorough exam on _our daughter_ ,” and Henry did not care for how possessively he addressed her. “Though I’m certain you’ll go back behind me anyway, doctor. She’s mostly perfect. My repeated compliments to you on her creation. Breathing is a tad asymmetrical, but then I’m sure that will even out when her lungs get the proper exercise. Do you concur?”

Henry glared at him, still mad. Yes, it was nice to no longer be tired or in pain, and yes, he enjoyed the immediate weight loss; but that did not change the fact that Adam had deliberately disobeyed him.

“Now, now. Don’t be so upset,” Adam insisted. He did not look repentant in the least. “Look on the bright side. You can go home and hold your daughter without needing a nap after.”

“As pleasant as that sounds,” Henry muttered irritably, “you still murdered me. I’ll not be forgetting that so soon.”

“I thought an overdose was... humane,” he said, stumped momentarily on that word of mercy. “You said you fear when death comes for you. I took expectance out of the equation.”

“You’re too kind,” Henry said, sarcasm dripping. “But there are still very many drawbacks to waking up naked in the river when I went to sleep warm and secure in a bed.”

“Then let’s put you back there,” Adam said. He threw the towel over Henry’s wet head and walked around to the driver’s side door. “That is, if the swim didn’t wake you too much.”

“Oh, I’m awake!” Henry shouted.

—

Adam was not an affectionate father, but neither was he careless or dangerous. It did take Henry a little while to convince himself of that fact, however.

The first time Adam requested to hold Hannah, Henry cringed, wanting to deny him. But then he rationalized, as his too kind heart always did, that it would have been unfair, and thus Henry slowly, very slowly, transferred her into a murder’s arms.

Adam held her close but loosely, supported her head just so. Henry realized it was ridiculous of him to think Adam had not fathered children before. Honestly, between the three adults in the house, he must have had the most experience.

“Sometimes you forget how... very small they are,” Adam spoke, seeming to talk to himself.

“Yes,” Henry agreed. He would not sit down or leave Adam’s side out of fear. He was unsure what horror he expected, but he wanted to be ready if it should transpire. “Yes,” he cleared his throat, “when Abigail and I adopted Abe he was already several weeks old. And even as a doctor in times of dire need, I’ve only ever delivered them and handed them off. So this is all a bit... new to me, this small size.”

“Enjoy it, Henry, she’ll be grown before you know it.”

“Yes,” he murmured. Oftentimes Henry still had trouble remembering when exactly Abe had grown into a man. The years seemed stolen from him and yet he had been there for most of them. “She will.” He stepped close and tapped her rounded nose. “I suppose I had best enjoy it.”

Adam handed her back, either satisfied or generous to the idea of indulging Henry’s love.

“I’d tell you not to get too attached—”

“But I’d ignore you,” Henry interrupted. “And I would too.” He rocked her back and forth, allowing himself to be taken captive by her big brown eyes. “Don’t spoil this, Adam. We’ll have her for a century, God willing. For now that feels like a long time.”

“Perhaps it is,” Adam said, “to you anyway, a child yourself.” He kissed Henry’s cheek, but there was more mockery to it than affection.

Henry took a seat on the couch and laid Hannah on his legs, letting her little feet pat against a flat and unscarred stomach. Adam sat beside him after a moment, gracefully and with all the nonchalance of a cat, as though it were only coincidence that Henry happened to be sitting there as well.

Hannah’s eyes were still unfocused, seeing the world but only in her limited way. There was a dark tuft of hair on her head, mostly in the middle, and Henry brushed it in one uniform direction with his fingers. He held her small hands in his, swaying in half-circles.

He exhaled, content. “Thank you,” he said so quietly, a nearly muted whisper.

“What are you thanking her for?” Adam asked, condescending as ever, feeling some need to inform Henry that the girl could not understand.

“Not her,” Henry said, and he tilted his head to glance at Adam, “you.” Then he felt embarrassed to say it and looked away again. “I know it may seem ridiculous,” he admitted. ”Essentially all I’m doing is... thanking you for sex.”

“Great sex,” Adam insisted.

“Yes,” Henry chuckled, “great... sex.” He let go of Hannah’s hand. His fingers traveled down his thigh and across the plush cushion until they joined Adam’s. He held the man’s hand, that firm and steady hand with bones that felt harder than a normal person’s, skin that felt less soft. After a few seconds Adam grabbed back, indulging the couple typical behavior. “Obviously it was never the intent. We had absolutely no way of knowing it could happen. Yet... here she is, and you’re responsible for that. Not just for the sex, of course, but because even though you killed me,” again he huffed his disapproval, “you did have the decency to deliver her first.” Henry placed his free hand against the face no bigger than his palm, idly picking at the soft hair he had just righted. He smiled. “I love her, Adam. And I know you don’t... care for her as deeply. Goodness knows you might not feel anything. But she is... here because of you. I’m grateful for that. You gave me this complete surprise, perhaps the only way I might have let myself have a child again. And I am sad to know she’ll die one day, afraid of it, but just like with Abraham and the miracle he was, I’ll enjoy every moment until then.”

Adam was an unmoving figure of stoicism through his entire speech. And at its end of he gave no lengthy or heartfelt reply. He only said, “If you’re happy, Henry, I’m happy,” but at the time it felt like enough. He meant it.

Henry coughed stiffly and dropped Adam’s hand. He said what he had intended and with its fulfillment felt an overpowering need to pretend it had never happened. “I’ll have to go shopping, of course,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if we were in for a boy or a girl, you understand, so I didn’t get too many things. But now I can go out and I can buy you lots of beautiful dresses,” he cooed at Hannah.

“She’ll outgrow them,” Adam said, ever reminding of time’s unending advance.

“Then I will buy new ones,” Henry replied defiantly, “an entire wardrobe for my darling princess Hannah.”

Adam let him have it. If Henry began to feel like he was buying new clothes every time he turned around, then he would buy them without complaint.

“You know,” Adam said, attempting aloofness but striving, transparently as ever, to impress Henry, “I did almost usurp a throne once. We could have been royalty.”

“Of course.” Henry groaned. He threw his head back against the couch as though exhausted by the man, but there was little chance in denying his smile, his amusement. “I don’t want to know. Do not tell me.” Adam shrugged, obediently letting the subject drop. “What country?” Adam took a breath to answer, but Henry interrupted him again. “No, no. I don’t want to know.”

—

Adam never soothed Hannah when she cried. Henry wondered if he was incapable, or if he believed he would be and thus did not try. Most everything fell back on Henry, but he did not mind it so terribly. A two o’ clock wake up call became normal and routine. He fed her. He changed her. He pulled all the calming classics from his vinyl collection, educating her prematurely on the sounds of old orchestras and their duet with static. Abe had gotten away from him, swept up in jazz, but Hannah would appreciate true artistry.

Henry allowed himself to spend so much time with her, in ways that work had kept him from doing Abraham. It was only the company of an infant, but he cherished it immensely.

Once again Adam made references to Henry’s clingy nature with his children. Yet when the bank of paternity leave did dwindle, he was the one that offered to cover any expenses if Henry wanted to quit his job entirely.

“No,” Henry said, and it was not a decision he made lightly. “No, give me that opportunity and I’m sure to become one of those parents who has nothing to talk about other than their children.”

“You already are,” Abe remarked. “And while I am thrilled that you’ve finally dipped your toe into _this_  century, may I just say we don’t need to see every single picture of Hannah you take on the camera.”

“Oh hush,” Henry said. “That electronic camera of yours is wonderful. I’ll have so many photographs to look back on.” He need not voice his sorrow, the idea that when he did flip through them it might be decades in the future, but more likely it would be centuries. He missed Hannah already, though she was still a baby and he had not even returned to work. Twelve weeks had gone too quickly. He felt it would have even if he were not immortal, that curse which stole meaning from time. “Did you ever resent my having to work?” he asked of Abe.

“You know,” Abe said, “now that you mention it there was a baseball game that—”

“God,” Henry groaned, “not that game again. How many times do I have to apologize?”

“What game?” Adam asked.

“Do not get him started!” Henry shouted, but it was too late.

“1956,” Abe recounted, “fifth game of the world series. New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers, and Don Larsen pitches a perfect game.”

“Yes, I remember,” Adam said. “It’s my own... mm, hobby to sample every culture’s favorite activity in different eras. 1950s America was very fond of baseball. I happened to be at that game. It was all very exciting.”

“You were at the game?” Abe exclaimed. “He was at the game, Henry.”

“Yes, well he was an adult at the time, perfectly within his rights,” Henry said.

“You couldn’t have been my step-dad sixty years ago,” Abe said to Adam, “for a day?”

“Well,” he said, “if I’d known Henry existed at the time I might have made an effort.”

“Abe, he is not your step-father,” Henry interrupted, “not for one day in the past and, no, not even now. Adam,” he addressed, “I was still very happily married at the time. You’d have had no chance whatsoever.” He took a deep breath and blew it out, his shoulders falling. “But I can see now the detriments in returning to work. Clearly I’ll have to quit my job.”

“Henry,” Abe told him, “I say this with all the love in my heart: get out. It’s been six months now and you’re driving me insane. Hannah too, she told me.”

“Hannah too?” he questioned with a half smile.

“Yes, Hannah too,” Abe repeated. “So you go back to work. We’ll be fine here. I’ll get that portable bed and her toys moved down to the shop and we’re good.”

“I could watch her,” Adam offered. “Why didn’t you ask me?”

“Uh,” Henry drawled uncertainly. He looked to Abe, who offered nothing but a similar expression of discomfort. “That is generous of you, Adam, a very... kind gesture, but...”

“Henry,” Adam said, putting him out of his misery, “I’m joking.”

“Oh, thank God.” Henry put a hand to his chest and sighed with relief. “Please don’t do that to me.”

“While I am,” he thought, “fond... of our Hannah, I don’t think I’d enjoy a day exclusively in her company anymore than she would mine. I believe I’ll wait until she can form sentences— at least.”

“Right,” Henry nodded, still reeling from horrific thought, “yes, of course.”

“Anyway it doesn’t matter,” Abe said. “She’s fine helping her big brother in the shop. Isn’t that right, Hannah?”

He leaned over where she was propped in a semicircle of cushions and tickled under her chin. “Ahh,” she cried, grinning as she rolled her head over and tried to stop him.

“We’ll be okay,” Abe assured Henry. “I’ll put her to work and she’ll earn her keep. But don’t worry,” he said, “no heavy lifting.”

“Yes, thank you,” Henry smiled.

But when the heart longed for the presence of something, assurances were but words.

Henry left early his first day back. He barely took the care to properly sew the body he was working on, and he used larger, quicker stitches to do it.

He took a taxi back to the shop, and when he arrived Hannah was right where he left her. Abe looked less than surprised to see him, and indeed his words reflected as much.

“I was expecting you an hour ago,” he said.

“Yes,” Henry said, “traffic was murder.” He bent over the railing of Hannah’s pop-up bed and sang a cheery greeting to her. She grinned upon recognizing him, and he picked her up and held her close. “The first day was hardest,” he said, bouncing her up and down, “but I’ll work out a system.”

His system was exhausting. Mostly it entailed weaning himself from Hannah and Hannah from him, but the rest was just as difficult. Not wanting to work Abe anymore after a day of it— and not wanting to so much as ask Adam— Henry came home to the equivalent of a second job.

“Would you like a nanny, Henry?” Adam asked of him. “I’ll get you a nice one, a live-in.”

“No,” Henry declined, and on that matter he was adamant. “No, I had one in my youth. I hated it endlessly. A child needs their parents.” He sighed. “Not to mention the hassle of bringing a normal person in on all... this.” He was not sure what it was they had under their roof exactly, but it was for the best they have no spectators to it.

“Suit yourself,” Adam said, dismissing the conversation.

And for a moment Henry felt anger. It was no secret that— despite genetics and the contributions therein— Hannah was his child alone, and he was fine with that burden, that knowledge, that love. The last thing he wanted was to force Adam to responsibility. Not only did he remain wary of the man’s involvement, but there was no telling how Adam would react under the obligation of something he did not want to do. There was, however, no denying that Henry was tired, burning the candle at both ends, as the saying went. So for one brief moment— or perhaps it was one night— Henry was angry at Adam, but it was a silent anger, a cold shoulder.

The message was received.

The next evening, Henry strolled in like he always did. There was the bell that chimed above the door. There was Abe in discussion with a customer. And behind the counter there was Hannah’s bed, but within there was no Hannah.

“Abe?” he asked, and receiving no notice he repeated himself, louder, “Abe!”

“Yeah,” he said, gesturing to the customer to give him just one minute.

“Where’s Hannah?” Henry asked, looking at her empty bed and then again to Abe.

“Upstairs,” he said. “I tried to stop him, Henry, but he did insist.”

Henry took a deep breath. “All right.” She was with Adam. How harmless that should have sounded; how frightening it actually was. “I’ll just,” he pointed to the back, “go upstairs then.”

He took the first five steps hurriedly, but upon the rest he forced a normal pace. There was nothing to fear, he told himself. Adam had fed Hannah a few times and held her many more. And yet all of that did not change the daunting fact that in almost five months’ time... he had never been alone with her.

“Henry,” Adam called, so obviously aware that he stood on the top step, calming his heart and its groundless worries, “I’m certain to be insulted if you keep that up.” He must have heard everything: Henry’s rushed steps, the slow ones, the thunderous breaths he took.

“I apologize,” Henry said, coming around the corner. Hannah was laying against Adam’s shoulder. Given the empty bottle on the table, she must have just eaten and needed now a good burp. “You clearly have this under control.” He heaved his relief again. “She wasn’t bothering Abe, was she? I’ll take her now.” He held his hands out to receive her, but Adam only nodded to the empty cushion beside him.

“Sit Henry,” he ordered, “relax. I’ll take care of her for an evening.”

Henry felt at war with decision. Surely he was paranoid. Adam had killed many people— more than Henry would ever know about— but it must have been beyond even him to harm a child. Henry could, he _would_  surrender to that optimism. He would give Adam the benefit in his doubt. “And you’re absolutely certain you want to do this?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t expect it too often,” Adam replied. He traced the outline of Hannah’s head with a fingertip, stroking her soft brown hair. “But on occasion, perhaps. You do deserve a break. Otherwise you’ll exhaust yourself and get upset when I put you out of your current life’s misery.”

“Yes.” Henry sat. He validated the effort required for a smile. It was a sloppy, crooked, tired thing but conveyed his gratitude all the same. “Yes, a break sounds wonderful, even a small one. Thank you, Adam.”

“I suppose,” the man decided, “she might be mostly yours, but she is still my daughter. It’s the least I can do.”

“Of course, yes,” Henry said. “I’m not opposed to sharing, especially not responsibility. And she’s no trouble really,” he promised.

Adam gave a nod and a half shrug. He brought Hannah down off his shoulder and sat her on his thigh, propping her up with a hand. She had become fairly adept at holding her own head up and she used the versatility to look at Henry. It was clear she wanted him, but she did not cry and was instead content, for a moment, to sit with Adam.

“I think she may come to like you yet,” Henry commented, watching as Hannah’s head went over and she took a dive into Adam’s stomach. She seemed fine, happy leaning against him. His hand held her accordingly, wrapping around her chubby side for support.

Adam could manage her. Henry felt tension ease as that acceptance flowed in. He would trust Adam to look after her, even if it was only perhaps once a week. He needed the rest too badly to argue.

They were quiet, the three of them, the oddest family in the world, lacking only Abe to make it complete. Henry was processing Adam’s altered designation, his new role in Hannah’s life. That he was willing to acknowledge her, acknowledge his paternity changed many things and yet so few. He did not know why Adam was so similarly quiet, not until he opened his mouth.

“I’ll have to lie to her,” he spoke, words nearly silent, his internal monologue made public.

“Whatever about?” Henry questioned with a twitching grin, feeling uneasy.

“Oh, about all I am,” he said, “who I am... _what_  I am.” His eyes grew old in a way that was impossible for them. The years he had endured leaked outward from dark pupils and wrapped wrinkles around their tired lids. “You know as well as I do, Henry, it’s not child friendly.”

“Nonsense,” Henry said, pushing words through a false smile, “she’ll love you because of who you are.” He spoke blatant lies.

“I appreciate your small effort to convince me otherwise, but I’m well aware of what I am.”

“And what is that?” he asked, hesitant. They had known each other for over two years. In that time, Henry had made his assessments. He knew he had a firm grasp on Adam’s mind as much as he also knew the man would surprise him through eternity. Adam was an enigma, and Henry wondered how he considered himself. “What are you, Adam?”

He laughed. It was coarse, a quiet wheezing sound in his throat. It lacked any mirth and was haunting for that absence. “I’m insane,” he said, “obviously.” He smirked wickedly for a second but then it slipped away, dropping slowly with realization, as though he had received terrible, life altering news. His eyes lost their keen, intimidating focus. Softly he repeated, “I’m insane.”

He was distressed, and in the presence of that emotion Henry felt the need to swaddle him in gentle lies. None were so forthcoming on his tongue. It felt heavy in his mouth. He hesitated in its use, for surely it was chained to truth. “Give me Hannah,” he said, prioritizing her care with distracted obligation as he saw Adam’s hand twitch and loosen around her waist.

Adam gave her over without resistance. Henry held Hannah against his chest and kissed her head. Then he placed her behind him, propped in the corner of the couch where she could do herself no harm.

The fingers of Henry’s impotent hands dug into the fabric of his pants, raising small folds along his thighs. Adam was insane, and through the many jokes that had been made and brushed off, in spite of his no doubt long-established suspicions, he was now aware of that fact. And he was motionless, inert with its harsh realization.

He was reduced low into the epitome of what he had become: the unraveled product of more than a hundred fragmented lives half-lived. Once more Henry feared him. But it was a selfish fear. Adam was the ghost of what was yet to come, a future he saw for himself in nightmare, unsure if he could change it or would be doomed upon its path.

Henry opened his arms and Adam jerked like some animal in a cage, or an animal that was expecting one. Henry embraced him. Adam was as hard and still as a statue.

“I’m sorry.”

Adam’s hand came up. He placed it lightly over Henry’s arm. It stayed there. Perhaps it was his way of ensuring Henry remained for a moment, wrapping caring, sympathetic arms around him.

“I’ve known, Adam,” Henry whispered, a hushed, nonthreatening tone. “I’ve known for a long time now.” Adam nodded, a small and slow movement, the kind you doubt and question the presence of, so brief it could not have transpired. Henry attempted to pull away, but Adam grabbed his sleeve, hard. There was better chance of it ripping than Henry slipping from its grasp. He remained as he was. “I know... At least _I think_  I know it’s not your fault. And I’m afraid, Adam, afraid that I’ll wind up like you. If we never find a way out what will happen... happen to me? The very idea, it terrifies me.”

“We will go mad together,” Adam said, explained, decreed. It was in no way a joke, and yet it made Henry laugh. In his confusion to the sound, Adam let go of his arm.

“Yes,” Henry said, patting Adam’s chest, “I suppose we will. Maybe though I’ll fair better with the presence of company.”

“I hope you do, Henry.” His sincerity was dubious. “Because I can only get worse.”

Henry wanted to lie to him, assure him they would help each other, but it would have been a fragile fallacy. “I won’t make you leave,” Henry promised, the truth, “not without a reason. In all honesty I feel it would only make you worse. And you _are_  best kept with an eye on you.”

“Thank you, Henry. That’s very kind,” he said, “and appropriately cautious.”

Henry looked behind himself, checking on Hannah. She was doing her very best to stick her fist in her mouth, drenching it and her outfit in a glossy spit. He turned back, serious and stern, pleading and exposed. “Just don’t hurt her,” Henry begged, “or Abe. I don’t care what you do to me, but just... don’t hurt them, please Adam.”

“Of course, Henry,” he said. His voice was so calm. The very thought had never sparked to life or crossed his mind. “Of course.”

“Thank you,” Henry said, breathing through his relief, quieting the pounding blood in his ears. It may have been foolish, but he did trust Adam to keep his word. “And I don’t care what you do,” he said, “however you want to approach raising Hannah. Do whatever you want. I won’t fault you either way. It’s absolutely your choice.”

Adam regarded him for a moment, laying Henry’s words with care upon a scale and weighing them against ardent truth. “But you would rather I lie,” he presumed.

“Would you have me lie now?” Henry asked.

“Well, if we can’t be honest with each other,” Adam said with slithering smile, “the only two immortals in this world, then whom?”

“Then I won’t lie,” Henry said, “a courtesy you’ve always given me.” He took a deep breath, for courage and to stall. “I think... yes. You should pretend with her. But please,” he urged, “believe me when I say it’s only for her benefit, for a healthy development. At least until she’s old enough to understand.”

“I appreciate your honesty.” He peeked around Henry’s shoulder. “Pick her up,” he commanded. Henry obeyed, sitting her on his leg nearest to Adam. “She’s beautiful, Henry.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “something we most definitely did do right.”

Adam gave her his hand and Hannah grabbed it by the index finger. She shook it with infantile strength that he pretended overpowered him, letting her thoroughly examine that individual digit until she tried to stick it in her mouth. Only then did he resist.

“I’ll watch her,” Adam said, lifting her from Henry’s hold. “Go take a hot bath or read a book, doctor. It’s your night off.”

He held Hannah under her arms and let her stand with feeble legs and curved feet upon his thighs. Already Henry sensed some change in Adam. There was a warmth, though it was artificial, like manmade light. Once again he was building, creating a person to suit the expectations of others.

“You don’t have to force so much at once,” Henry said, sparing him the stress of it for a little while longer. “She is only a baby after all.”

“All within this world are nubile to me,” Adam replied. “And infants are... far more impressionable than you think. Leave me to my charades and let me choose their pace, Henry. We won’t talk about this again.”

They did not.

And when a near stranger sat at the breakfast table the next day, Henry explained the situation to Abe separately.

Adam disappeared for long stretches, though his body remained right at home. He would sometimes put the disguise away when they were alone, just the two of them. But mostly he was gone, and in his place was Hannah’s father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never really put much thought into kiddie names. 9/10 times I go with the first one that pops into my head. This was no exception. My brain just said “Hannah” and I went with it. But I kinda liked it as I went. It’s aaaaalmost like you combined Henry and Adam’s names. Henry’s H and N. Adam’s vowels. Shh. Perfect name.


	3. After

The small light in the car was dim and largely unhelpful. What it did manage to give made peaks of shadow along the creases of the map. Henry kept holding various sections closer to the small bulb in hopes of getting a better look.

“You know, it's a good thing we’re immortal, Henry,” Adam commented, “because you’re going to get us lost forever. We’ll hear trumpets before we find the place.”

“Nonsense,” Henry replied, “I happen to be an expert navigator. What I _need_  is better light.”

“There’s a flashlight in one of the bags,” he said. “Shall I pull over?”

“No, don’t do that,” Henry said. “I’ll get it in a moment. For now just keep going straight.”

Adam sighed.

“Don’t!” Henry told him. The argument had been discussed several times already.

“Could have added the GPS,” Adam said, ignoring Henry’s order. “For a few hundred more, we could have had it.” It was often obvious that Adam had long ago given up the fight against assimilation. Henry was not yet so comfortable letting go of the past.

“We don’t need one of those ridiculous doodads to tell us when to turn,” Henry insisted. “I’m quite capable of telling you myself.” He traced the lines of his roadmap, folding it to get a better view. “There!” He jabbed the map with his finger. “Twelve more miles and we turn right.”

“Thank you, Henry,” Adam said, utterly insincere. “You’re invaluable.”

“It doesn’t matter how we get there,” Henry said, “only that we do.” He folded the map back into its compact size and put it in the glove compartment. Then he turned off the light and dropped the car back into night’s darkness.

“Where are we going?” Hannah asked.

Henry turned to look at her, fighting the horrible inconvenience of his seatbelt. The confining thing was a good example for children however, and thus why Adam was forced to wear his as well. That and tickets were never very much fun.

Hannah was sitting in her carseat so patiently. She was a sweet child, always waiting for her turn to speak. “We’re going to a house upstate,” Henry said with a smile. There was no reason to worry her unnecessarily. He was wide smiles and an overly cheerful tone. “We’ll have lots of land and trees. There’s even a little pond with fish.”

“Why?” she asked, the favored question of all three-year-olds.

“Why are we leaving?” Henry asked for clarification. She nodded, brown curls bouncing. “Well,” he stammered, “well, we um...”

“Because, Hannah, someone said your daddy looked so very pretty,” Adam explained with a smirk.

“Uh-huh,” she said, “he is pretty.”

“Don’t put words in her mouth,” Henry nagged.

“But that person also said he looked too young and so he panicked.” Leave it to Adam to make it sound like he was overreacting. If it was one person it was twenty, and all of them within the last year. He simply did not look like a man approaching his late forties.

“What’s that word?” Hannah asked.

“Panicked?” She nodded. “It means... I’m scared,” Henry softly spoke. “So we’re going to live in the country for a little while, away from the big city but still near enough that Abe can visit.”

“And get a puppy dog?” she asked. “We get a puppy?”

Henry hummed with contemplation. He was not overly fond of dogs, but those big doe eyes of Hannah’s were weapons of manipulation.

“Let the girl have a dog,” Adam urged.

Henry sighed and then he smiled. “A boy dog or a girl dog?” he asked.

“Girl!” she shouted.

“All right,” he said, “for my darling Hannah, a little girl dog.” He dropped the smile with a huff and shifted his irritation back at Adam, who returned it with a smirk.

“You’re uprooting her,” the man said. “What’s the imposition of one dog by comparison?”

Henry said nothing. He may have lost the brief and pointless battle, but he preferred to lose it with dignity.

“Look here, Hannah,” he pointed ahead. “We’re coming up on a bridge.”

She tried to sit higher or lean over, but she was too tightly buckled in her carseat. “Can’t see.”

“Wait a minute and we’ll be on it,” Henry said.

Adam drove onto the bridge and the car made a low pitched thunk as they swapped one consistency of pavement for another with its dividing dip in between.

“Some people make wishes when they cross bridges,” Henry said. “So close your eyes, Hannah, and make a really big wish.” He looked into the backseat and saw her big eyes scrunched together. Then he turned back around and thought of his own heart’s desire. When he opened his eyes, Adam was looking across at him with much intensity. “What?”

“And just what could you have to wish for?” he said.

“Don’t act so surprised, Adam. Life is good... but it isn’t perfect,” Henry muttered with criticism. “For goodness sake, we’re fleeing to hide the fact we’re immortal.”

There was a light on Adam’s cheek, yellow and warm and growing brighter, bigger by the second. He must have observed the same on Henry’s own face for he hastily returned his eyes to the road.

The steering wheel spun, but the other driver was upon them, recklessly fast and in the wrong lane. He hit them on the side and their car crashed into the bridge’s railing. They ripped through the thin metal so effortlessly its very purpose was at question. The car teetered briefly upon bridge and open air, then it gave up its fight and fell.

Water sprayed up around them when they hit. Henry screamed at the pain in his legs and saw that the force of the other car had pinned him, mangling his lower half and covering him in so much blood he could barely differentiate between car and man. He would not last long.

“Adam!”

Henry looked to the driver’s seat. Adam’s head had slumped forward. Every slope of skin upon his face was dripping with blood. Like Henry, he could not have much life left in him. But he had not yet vanished, so he was not yet dead.

Hannah was screaming in the backseat, but Henry could not console her. As he watched water flow inside and wet legs that barely felt, he knew. They were sinking. His distorted door gave easy passage to the rushing liquid.

“Adam!” he shouted again, and he jostled the man, trying his best to wake him. “Adam, please. I can’t move,” he cried. “You have to help Hannah. Please!” Henry shook him over and over until finally he came awake with a groan.

“Henry,” he murmured, “wha—” Then he saw outside the window, how the dim light of night was quickly giving way to a watery blackness. His movements were sluggish and it was obvious his head wound made him dizzy. A shaking and clumsy hand traced his seatbelt, groping for the buckle. Hannah screamed without cessation and it distracted his efforts. “Shut up!” he shouted, a demonic roar. “Shut up!”

“Adam stop!” Henry yelled at him, and he did his best to help with the restraining seatbelt. His hands shook and his fingers felt numb. He was dying too quickly. “She’s scared,” he stammered, voice unsteady. “We’re sinking. Her parents are dying.” He found the buckle and pressed down hard, freeing Adam. “Help her.”

The car was black. Every window had sank beneath the surface. The engine filled with water and went down first. It gave one last rumble and cut out, dead. Not even the dash was illuminated anymore.

With sense of sight gone Henry felt his others heightened. Water gurgled and he felt its icy hands climbing up his chest. He would be submersed all too soon.

Adam climbed clumsily into the backseat. Henry felt him pass.

The car lurched forward as the front took on more water. It pulled them down to a horrid angle. Henry breathed in and the air was liquid. He turned his face upward for a little more time, a little more breath.

There was banging, loud and hard but muffled by the water in his ears. With any luck Adam would break the window open and drag them up. “You save her, Adam!” Henry shouted. There was water in his mouth. “You save her!”

Another minute, terrorized by helplessness and the sensation of drowning, then Henry Morgan died.

He broke the water’s surface and it was one icy swim exchanged for another with only the pyrrhic benefit of no clothes weighing him down.

Henry spun around. There were trees. He thought, he hoped, it was the same river he had just died in.

He saw the bridge. It was far, nearly a mile. He might not have noticed at all if not for the framing lights. The swim was a quick one, though he fought a current for the shore. Then he took off running.

He was wet and it was cold, but he barely noticed. The skin of his newly born feet split apart on sharp rocks and weeds. He did not care.

“Adam!” he screamed the entire way. “Hannah!”

It felt so long— an eternity, a life longer than the ones he usually occupied— but there came an answer. “Henry!”

“Adam!” he yelled again. They called each other back and forth, voices growing louder, closer, until finally Henry saw him.

He was soaked. And he was bare of clothes.

“No,” Henry said, a cry, a whisper. Then again, louder, “No.” He shook his head. “No, no, no.” The space between them closed. Henry begged without words. He wanted the cold fear in his stomach invalidated.

“I had her,” Adam said. He was breathing hard. Drowning had a way of making one greedy for air.

“Well where is she?” Henry shouted. He hit Adam’s bare chest with a hard, tight fist. “Where is she!”

“I had her,” he repeated. Another deep breath. “The car was full of water.” Henry did not want to hear, and yet he knew he must. “I opened the window and I pulled us out but...” His shoulders slumped and he turned somber, melancholic for Henry’s loss, if not for his own. “I blacked out before I cleared the surface.”

Henry shook his head frantically, refusing to believe. “She could still be alive,” he said. “She knows how to swim. She knows how to swim. Hannah!” He ran down the river, yelling her name over and over. Adam was quick behind him, inserting the call between Henry’s rests.

She knew how to swim. Of course she did. Henry had taken her to lessons since she was a baby. A part of him always feared a heredity to his curse, their curse. Should she ever awaken in water, he wanted her to swim.

They traced the river for seven miles at least, to the bridge and past it, downstream where all things were swept. Henry would have given anything to see her little head and dark hair, holding steady above the water’s surface. He would have welcomed the sight of her naked and reborn, even if it meant she was cursed as an immortal. He saw neither of those things, and they were growing tired in their search.

They walked until their bare feet bled. They yelled her name until their throats were raw.

Adam stole them clothing and shoes from a shop on the side of the road, closed at that dark hour. He used the phone and called the police, as Henry insisted he should.

And then there was nothing. They could do nothing. They could say nothing. Henry’s thoughts he tried to turn to nothing but in that he failed.

He sat on the sidewalk and stared ahead, looking as one catatonic and wishing such a state pervaded his mind as well. He had too many thoughts.

Adam stood beside him and was quiet. He did not feel loss so wholly anymore, he could not. His soul was barren of the currency that men bartered for humanity. Henry was envious of such a gift, but more so did he despise the man for possessing it, exercising it.

“Why weren’t you watching the road?”

“No,” Adam moaned and he sounded so disappointed. “No, Henry, no, no, no. You’re jumping the gun. It’s not time for blame just yet. You have to wait. First,” he said, his words a well thumbed, dog-eared handbook on the subject, “we deny. Deny, deny, deny. Then comes sorrow. We mourn. I imagine you’ll feel it more strongly with your... youthful fervor. And I respect that, I truly do. But when that fades the anger comes. You... imagine a million alternatives. And then, only then, does the blaming begin. Don’t rush matters, Henry. What’s the hurry?”

Henry crossed his arms and gripped them tightly. “I hate you,” he whispered, bitter at Adam’s callous indifference. “You despicable—”

“What?” Adam demanded, and Henry quieted, losing his nerve. “Say it, Henry.” He shook his head. “Monster? If you have names to call me you should say them now. When the police arrive they will surely expect our grief. Anger would be suspicious.” He laughed and it was a cruel reminder to his twisted insides, the reality he had kept so well hidden for so long. “You can’t let them know you’re upset with me because I’m immortal and arrogant about it. What is it you want me to say? That I’ve forgotten how to take caution or care? You knew that, Henry.”

“She was human,” Henry shouted, “a mortal child! You should have treated her with such... fragility.”

“I did,” Adam said, his words so hushed. “I know how much you cared for her. I would have had her die an old woman that never knew those crueler agonies of death— for you, Henry. I only want for you... to be happy.”

Henry laughed but it was a sad sound that became more depressive every passing second until finally he did cry. “I think you failed,” he choked, “miserably.”

Adam sat beside him with smooth grace. His hands twitched in his lap, unsure of what to do. To the concept of sympathy he was an ignorant wretch. But he took a chance, a gamble. He leaned closer. He placed one arm around Henry’s shoulders and pulled him over.

Henry went.

“God!” he shouted, a curse without a target. He hit Adam’s chest over and over as the man continued to pull him close, until he had no room to continue his assault. Henry let himself be held.

“It’s all moot anyway,” Adam spoke. He ran his fingers through Henry’s hair, ignoring the kind notion of tenderness. He did not pull or yank, but he kept the short, wavy strands clenched tight. Henry welcomed the slight pain of it. “I know a drunk driver when I see one, Henry. I know from... experience.”

He let Adam speak with the police and stood silently at his side. Henry was too familiar with death to be incapacitated by it. He was not familiar enough to talk.

The river was searched. Volunteers of the small town, people Henry had never met, assisted. But as the sun climbed and loomed above and began to set again, there could be no refuting of their empty hands.

Adam was wrong in thinking he would tarry long in denial. It was his curse in life to outlive everyone he loved. What was one more cruelty, one lifespan passing more quickly than usual?

It felt easier to give up hope, and yet it was the hardest thing he had ever done.

Sympathies began to change in the dying sunlight. The police asked new questions, but they were hidden in subtext like a snake in tall grass. Henry knew what they were implying. How did they both manage to get out but lose their daughter? What sort of parent let go of their child’s hand, even in such a strong current? Why did they not swim after her?

Henry did not want to blame the officer. He had been on the other side of the process and knew the man was only doing his job. And yet his hand balled tightly at his side. He could hit him. He would have if Adam’s hand had not wrapped around his fist, guessing his thoughts and stopping his actions. Henry was willing to take on both men if the questions did not stop. He wanted them to stop. He wanted everything, the world, to stop. He wanted to go home.

“Hey!” came a familiar voice. “You wanna tell me why you’re treating these guys like suspects?”

Henry relaxed in Jo’s presence, trusting her to handle all that was wrong, that lawful burden that layered itself over grief. Adam let go of his hand.

“Just doing my job,” the officer said. He was decent enough to be ashamed for his questions, and he was visibly relieved that someone had come to make him stop, a father himself perhaps.

“Well this guy’s one of ours,” she pointed at Henry and was conveniently mum on the fact he had quit his job three weeks ago, “so I trust ‘em. And unless you want to charge them I’m taking them home.”

The man waved them off, consenting to their leave. “I’ve got contact info if I need to get in touch,” he said.

Jo’s face was stern, one that brooked no room for arguments, but when she finally turned to regard Henry it all fell. Her lip twitched and her eyes wasted no time in drawing tears. “I, uh,” she inhaled deeply, “I heard on the radio. Henry, I’m so sorry.”

He bit his lip and nodded his head, grateful for her sympathy but still not trusting himself to speak. She hugged him for a long moment, and when she pulled away she placed a gentle hand on Adam’s shoulder, a truce between them and their silent feud of four years. Adam looked so perfectly lost and distraught, as a parent should have. His lie made Henry angry, no matter its necessity.

“Come on,” Jo said. “I’ll take you home.”

It must have seemed so peculiar when Henry sat in the front seat across from Jo. But the last thing he wanted was a long ride in the back with Adam while the man comforted him for show. He would rather stare out the window alone than play up an act for an hour.

It was a long, seemingly endless drive, and Henry thought often of banging his fists on every surface he could reach.

Jo was given no instructions on where to go, or if she was Henry paid them no attention. He opened the door before the car had stopped. He ran inside the antiques store.

“Henry?” Abe asked. Seeing his distress, he came quickly from behind the counter. “I thought you guys would be settling in by now. What’s wrong?”

Henry wrapped his arms around Abe so strongly, pulling him as close as he could, until he could defy clothing and skin and bone and feel his still beating heart, his living child.

“Oh Abe,” he sobbed, but he had no strength for more. Henry had held it in for hours, almost an entire day. He broke. He cried in Abe’s ear, and always he tried to hug him tighter. He ran his hands frantically over his son’s back, grasping wildly at his shirt, feeling him, confirming he was there.

Abe did not ask again. He held Henry with an arm across his back and a hand on his head, letting him know it was all right to stay exactly where he was, to soak his shoulder with tearful emotion.

The bell on the door chimed, though Henry barely heard it. Abe must have counted those that entered because he grabbed Henry just a little tighter, using clues to slide those silent puzzle pieces into place. “Come on,” he said, and louder he called, “Lock the door,” across the shop.

Henry did not know if Jo stayed, and as horrible as it may have sounded he hoped she had not. Abe needed an explanation— from Adam who was able— and it would be best that he receive the whole truth one time.

Henry was led upstairs and put on the couch. Abe stayed beside him. They were alone with Adam, who sat stoically in the nearby chair.

If they discussed what happened, Henry was not aware. He stared at the coffee table, choking on breaths and straining his eyes to a red sorrow.

He did not remember falling asleep, but neither did he remember waking up. There was only the wall in his bedroom and a murky timeframe of how long he had been looking at it.

He was a fool.

For so long he had called his immortality a curse. But he defied that ruling too often, obstinately believing he could find its silver linings. He would never have met Abigail or Abraham. He would never have had Hannah. Such joys in his life and all of them outside his mortal lifespan. But it was still a curse, and he saw that now. He remembered. They would all be taken from him and it was one more torment. The worst and most ironic cruelty was of his own doing, that assumption he could be happy for even a little while. He was so stupid to believe.

Maybe Adam had the right idea all along: the murder of the self, of humanity and hope.

Henry thought he could do it. He contemplated the idea as seriously as anyone else would their choice in homicide, for that was how he saw it. Suicide implied an end, and there would still be someone, some thing, left when he was done.

He laid in bed and convinced himself that it would be so much easier to die inside, to be a coward and forget all the pains he had arduously endured.

There was a knock, quiet. Abe came into his room, slowly and with a tray of tea. He hoped it might help, even a little. He wanted to help.

Humanity was good.

Henry could have cried, again, for a new reason. Humanity was good. And he wanted to be counted among them for just a little while longer.

Abe sat on the edge of the bed and Henry raised himself up. He held his son so close. “I’m sorry,” he said, the two words muffled in the fabric of Abe’s shirt. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Abe said, “it’s not your fault. It’s not. We all know you did everything you could.”

That was not what he apologized for.

—

The police found the drunk driver. And the next day they found him again, dead in his cell; or rather they found the parts that had once been him, all present and accounted for, though spread with disgusting intricacy to every corner of painted brick and steel bar.

Henry had no idea how Adam managed such a feat without detection. The process must have been long... and loud.

It was equally unclear whom he killed for. Was it his own revenge, personally waged, proof that he felt an emotion? Or did he dispense horrific death on Henry’s behalf, knowing he never would himself?

All the answer Henry ever needed presented itself when Adam showed up in the basement that afternoon. He was the cat that deposited a dead rat at its master’s feet.

“Don’t,” Henry said, voice quiet and lacking any real authority, “don’t kill for me.”

“Someone had to,” Adam said. “And I knew you wouldn’t.”

“No!” Henry shouted. “No one ‘had to’! The police had the matter under control.”

Adam sighed, an exhale of great length. Henry exhausted him. “Courts, lawyers, a minimal prison sentence under the twisted ruling of ‘manslaughter.’ He’d be out again one day, Henry, and all too soon by our standards. Is that really what you wanted?” Adam put a hand on his shoulder. Its intent was comfort but the result was unease. “These modern courts are too heavy-handed with their second chances.” Cold fingers rubbed gentle circles against Henry’s neck and shoulder, an expert’s mimicry of compassion. “That man bought every cut with his recklessness. I meted them out, is all. Tell me you’re not more pleased this way. Tell me... a part of you didn’t want to do it yourself.” He stepped closer, dropping his hand down Henry’s back and embracing him. “I won’t even ask for a thank you,” Adam whispered in his ear.

“Stop,” Henry ordered, pleaded. He did not want Adam to keep going until he knew such a thing about himself, knew if he really wanted a man dead. “Please just,” he pushed him away with tired hands, “stop.”

Henry turned his back, hiding just to breathe. Adam pursued him not with steps or groping hands, but with words. They chased Henry when he needed them least.

“I was wrong about you, Henry. I thought one last shove, one death, would convert you. But you are resilient in your humanity, obstinately so.”

A shock stabbed Henry’s heart and sped all following beats into a thumping irregularity. His insides burned with a cold dread. He spun slowly, first with one eye peeking over his shoulder, then the rest of him. “Did you,” the question rose like bile in his throat, “let her die?”

Adam inhaled deeply through his nose, flaring his nostrils. His gaze avoided Henry’s for one second then two. “No,” he said. It was not a lie. “No, I tried to save her, as you asked, as I felt... paternally obligated to do.” He felt no insult from Henry’s insinuation. It was a reasonable question. Adam did not blame him for asking.

The answer helped, but Henry felt no relief to be in the presence of a man he had so justifiably accused. For a moment he had been unsure, and that terrified him.

“Leave me alone, Adam,” he said, quiet and monotone. “Just... give me some time.” He realized when he said it how ridiculous the statement was. For them, ‘time’ could mean a month; it could mean two. In the unending longevity of immortality, ‘time’ could be five years and yet nothing.

“‘Time,’” Adam repeated, and he laughed at the great joke with all its absent humor. “It’s yours, Henry. You only had to ask.” He bowed in placation.

Adam took to the stairs and left.

In his absence Henry felt lighter, free of a burden, but more he felt alone.

—

A month went by.

Henry had always seen the progression of time on a straight line. Now it felt like a downward spiral.

He tried to keep himself busy, his mind occupied, but there was only so much he could do. He had quit his job and felt in no state to take that decision back.

Buried beneath the earth in his lab he theorized on everlasting death once more— strictly from habit, of course, but also with the knowledge of an eventual need for it.

His gun looked so fine in its display case.

He distracted himself by reading and even the moronic monotony of television, anything to keep his mind awake. Sleep was horrific.

Henry dreamed of Hannah and her sweet smile, her little voice, her big brown eyes. He would wake already in tears. Then the drowsy curtain of sleep drew back and he remembered what he had dreamed. It made him sick, physically ill.

Another month went by and his depression remained. It would be with him always, a penance.

Henry had memorized the outline of his pistol, its curves, the tarnished shine of twilit sun on its metal. He never touched it. He never went further than entertaining the thought of oblivion. He still had many reasons to live, he told himself. He still had Abraham.

His sickness did not relent. Loathsome memories of happiness and loss were a plague, but that they attacked him so radically, so physically dragged even his grief hazed mind to suspicion.

Optimism beyond all logical hope made him think, and it was that thought that drew a tube of blood out of his shaking arm. “You are foolish,” he told himself.

“You are wrong.”

His stomach lurched with anxiety. He would rather abort all tests, break the equipment beyond repair, than get an answer. He wanted so desperately to be right, but when had life ever played so fair? It would be better if he refused reality the satisfaction of denying him.

Somehow, by greater display of strength than he thought himself capable of, he let the test finish.

It was too much. It was a dream. But if he was in fantasy, he would embrace every moment until awakening, and hate himself only then.

“Abraham!” Henry shouted, calling his son’s name again and again. He ran to the stairs of his lab and up them. Abe met him halfway down.

“What, what?” he asked. “You’ll give a guy a heart attack doing that.”

Henry jumped onto the step beside him and gave Abe a big kiss on the cheek. “She’s back,” he said.

“Who?” Abe questioned, but Henry was already running up the rest of the stairs.

“Where’s the bloody phone?” he shouted.

“Where it always is,” Abe yelled as he walked back upstairs. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

He was halfway through dialing the number by the time Abe joined him.

“Who’s back?” Abe asked. And he took a considerate pause before hesitantly, hopefully saying, “Hannah?”

Henry held up a finger to quiet him. Adam had no voicemail message. There was only ever silence and a beep. “She’s back,” he said, and he hung up the phone. Only then did he realize that in his excitement he had been far too cryptic. “Oh, god, Abe,” he babbled, “I’m sorry. I... It’s Hannah. She’s back.”

Abe looked him up and down with curiosity, his gaze landing in the middle. “How?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Henry sang. There was an indomitable smile on his face. It almost hurt. “But if you need me I shall be downstairs, theorizing!”

Abe followed him around his laboratory for a little while, asking questions Henry was too ill equipped and preoccupied to answer just yet. He took the hint eventually and went back upstairs to mind the store.

Some time later the bell rang and in the doorway stood a familiar shadow.

“Don’t go down there unless you’re ready to catch some papers,” Abe advised. “‘Cause buddy they are a-flyin’.”

Adam doffed his hat and nodded his acknowledgement to the warning before making his way into the basement. It was a mess, like some bomb that had gone off and rained debris all around. At its center Henry was scrawling away, switching between paper and chalkboard. It took him several minutes to realize he was not alone.

“Adam,” he exclaimed. He looked at his watch before slipping it back into his pocket. “I only called you an hour ago. I thought for certain you’d be in Europe or some such place.”

“And why would you think that?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Henry admitted. “Why would you stay in New York all this time?”

He did not answer, and Henry dare not press the matter. That Adam remained near in case he was needed was an idea Henry wanted neither proven nor disproven.

Adam held up his phone. “I received a very confusing message, Henry. Care to explain?”

“Yes actually, I would _love_  to explain. But first we need Abraham. Abe!” he yelled. “I think I’m ready to explain now!”

He sat them in mismatched chairs, his small class of two. Abe had long ago lost patience with such theatrics, but Adam seemed at least somewhat amused by his enthusiasm.

“She’s back,” Henry began. Already his hand did wander, straying to his stomach, resting there.

“So you keep saying,” Abe commented. “But please tell me you’ve gotten a little further in your assessment than that, a ‘how’ maybe.”

“It’s the same way I come back,” Henry said, “that Adam comes back. She’s immortal.”

“Except... Hannah wouldn’t have been cursed,” Abe asserted.

“Right you are, Abraham. But Hannah is the product of two immortals.” Henry held his hands up and locked the fingers of each together. “Dominant traits will out, or at the very least, recessive traits with heightened probability. In her it was hereditary. If she dies she won’t emerge from water, no. She will always return to that moment her curse began, and that is—”

“Conception,” Adam said. “Marvelous, Henry.” He stood and glanced over the papers and chalkboards with their many scribbled notes. “Marvelous.”

“Now wait a minute,” Abe spoke up. “What about her, uh, her consciousness? Let’s say she’s in there. All right. But is she... thinking like a three-year-old?”

“Oh heavens no,” Henry shook his head. “Can’t you just imagine how awkward that would be? Not to mention boring. And worse still if she should happen to die at an older age one day. No, no.” Henry shuffled papers around on his desk, excavating its buried surface and covered belongings. He held up a book, already open to a chosen page. “No, you see her brain is far, far too underdeveloped. It could never process such complex emotions or thoughts.” He pointed in the book to a long, drawling page of text with an anatomical drawing of a brain next to it. But he slammed the book shut and put it back away before anyone could actually read what it said. “Our brains grow slowly. Were I a betting man, I might even put my money on her not remembering until she’s back where she left off, three-years-old, maybe even four. No, I’m certain it will be a slow process, very gradual.”

“Well I for one look forward to watching such an... interesting hypothesis unfold,” Adam said. “I suppose we’ll know of its legitimacy if Hannah ever begins screaming about drowning.” His amusement over such a horrid occurrence— irrelevant as it now was— shook Henry’s nerves.

“Yes, well right now it is only theory,” he reminded. “For all we know it might not even _be_  Hannah.” And in that comment he spared Abe, not wanting to discuss and give visualization to his insistence on using protection between himself and Adam. Ironically it had been from his not wanting to find out the hard way if he could become pregnant again, an occurrence he now knew was not a one time fluke. His biology was completely rearranged, perhaps permanently. “But two things I am certain of: I am recently celibate and yet I am with child.”

“So in another, what, six months we’ll know if it’s Hannah?” Abe asked.

“Sooner than that, Abe,” Henry said. “Adam, how are your hands, steady?”

The man held one hand out flat. It did not waver. “Like a surgeon’s.”

“Excellent,” Henry grinned. “So you take this,” he dropped a large syringe into Adam’s hand, then he cleared the edge of a table and hopped upon it, “and extract a small amount of amniotic fluid, if you would.”

“Henry, get down from there,” Abe scolded. “That can be a dangerous procedure in the wrong hands.”

“Oh, I would never hurt Henry,” Adam insisted. The following silence was awkward and harnessed by Henry and Abe to exchange a look regarding the several times Adam had killed him thus far. “I enjoy his excitement, Abraham. I would very much like to humor it.”

“No,” Abe said. He rolled up a stack of papers and hit them both over the head with it. Adam did not appreciate the gesture and scowled slightly to receive it. Abe took the syringe from his hands. “The two of you are hundreds of years old. Act your age, why don’t you? Six months is nothing, right? Isn’t that the mindset?”

“But Abe,” Henry pleaded. It had been a long while since that insignificant amount of time had meant so much. He almost felt mortal again, for all that a few months held torturous sway of him.

“I’m sorry, Pops, but it’s something you’ll just have to wait for,” Abe said.

It was a cruelty to deny conclusive results, but Henry acknowledged it as a responsible cruelty at least. Abe only wanted what was for the best, and Henry could see that potentially killing Hannah, again, was not it. He nodded his agreement to let the procedure go.

“Good,” Abe said. “Now, you old fogeys get caught up, or whatever it is you usually talk about. I’m making a special dinner to celebrate.” He clapped his hands together and went upstairs, leaving them alone.

Henry felt surprisingly awkward to be around Adam again. They had been so intimately involved for so long. Then it had gone. “I... think that I missed you,” Henry said. The statement took him by surprise, for all that it came from his own mouth. “I suppose that’s what I felt anyway,” loneliness, absence.

Adam removed his customary black gloves. He laid them, one atop the other, on Henry’s desk. “And I you,” he said.

“You did?” Henry asked. It was not as if Adam hid his infatuation. The opposite had always been too fiercely apparent. Two months, however, seemed too brief for him to notice a void.

“Is that so surprising?” he questioned. His phantom smirk spoke of Henry’s own thoughts. He knew that Adam obsessed over him, loved him as well as he could. And Adam knew that he knew it.

“No.”

—

“I missed this too,” Adam murmured in his ear, pressed close behind him. He kissed Henry’s bare shoulder.

“Somehow I don’t think this is what Abe had in mind when he told us to catch up,” Henry grinned lazily.

“Oh, I’m sure he suspected,” Adam said. Henry preferred not to think about that. It was far too awkward.

“This floor is terribly uncomfortable,” he said, changing the subject. They had began on the settee, but it only took one fall to change their mind on that location. A rug laid on concrete flooring was a poor second choice, no matter how plush it was.

Adam turned Henry over on his back, propped above him and staring with his typical muted adoration. “And you’re in far too delicate a condition to be uncomfortable. Is that it?”

“Please, don’t tease me,” Henry groaned. “It’s bad enough I have to endure being pregnant again. I can certainly do without the jokes.”

“You love it,” Adam said.

“It is a price I’ll gladly pay,” Henry swore, “as many times as I must.”

Adam bowed his head over Henry’s abdomen. He kissed down his stomach. “You never cease to surprise me, Henry,” he said. “Without even knowing it, you created the world’s third immortal.”

“Hmm, that we know of,” Henry asserted, but Adam did not hear, or chose not to.

“She’s truly wonderful.”

“No,” Henry whispered, “she’s cursed.” And through all of his excitement and happiness, a cloud grew dark. It swallowed all others and tainted them. “I... wanted this,” he said, a confession. “I wanted her back, no matter what. But all I’ve done is sentence her to this same... _thing_  we’re afflicted by.”

“It would have happened either way,” Adam reasoned, “whether you wanted her to return or not. You can’t change immortality, Henry. I thought you knew that by now.”

“Yes,” he said. “And for now it will be all right. She’s only three. Or,” he shook his head, still trying to work through it all, “not right now she isn’t. But she will be again. And one day she will die, again. I don’t want this life for her, Adam. Promise me we’ll find a way to break it, for her, for Hannah.”

“If we haven’t stopped it so far,” Adam said, “I don’t see where a changed motivation would help.”

“Lie to me,” Henry ordered, not wanting such selfish logic.

“I promise,” Adam said obediently. “We’ll break the curse.”

“Thank you,” Henry sighed, pretending it was sincere.

Adam kissed him. Rarely had he been so affectionate. Maybe he knew Henry was in a good mood for it, or perhaps he truly had missed him.

He pulled away and rested his forehead against Henry’s shoulder. His open mouth blew warm air on Henry’s neck, giving a faint tickling sensation, but he ignored it. “We can’t stay here,” Adam said. “I let you come back because I knew you needed Abe.”

“You _let_  me?” Henry scoffed, offended by Adam’s bold return to the idea that he owned him in any way.

“But it would be irresponsible to stay,” he went on, unmindful of having been interrupted. “You’ve been here more than ten years, Henry. There was a reason we were leaving.”

“Yes,” Henry agreed, “but I can’t just leave Abe. He was such great help last time. I can’t imagine being pregnant without him around.”

“The boy is almost seventy-five,” Adam said. “You can’t make him cater to you.”

“I don’t _make_  him do anything,” Henry insisted. “He’s happy to help, usually.”

“Henry,” Adam said, suddenly very serious, “they will... wonder where another child has come from so soon. They will criticize your choice of mourning. And eventually they will notice she looks the same as Hannah.”

Henry stared at the wooden ceiling, its dark and splintering beams, an errant nail that stuck out where it should not. He inhaled deeply. It swelled his chest and lifted Adam’s weight. He exhaled and the man fell again. It was all too true. “Tell me,” he asked, “when exactly did _you_  become the voice of reason?”

“Oh, I’ve my family to think of,” he said, and one corner of his thin lips pulled back in an arrogant smirk. “And I’d rather... not be dissected again. You, I think, would give them a grand time if they found you while with child.” He stared at the exposed brick wall with passive thought. His mind was a vast library with books on subjects spanning thousands of years. And yet he focused all too often on the very limited field of his obsession. “It’s us, Henry, just us. The three of us through eternity.”

“Yes.” It was more horrific than any death sentence. Immortality would hollow him, hollow them all. But they would be together. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

* * *

“Darling, you really should be more careful,” Henry told the four-year-old with memories of an adult life and a fatal mugging at age nineteen. “It’s not that I don’t enjoy being pregnant, really. It’s simply... well it isn’t exactly my favorite thing either. Not least of all because your father kills me every time,” he muttered at the end.

“At least you come back an adult,” she sulked.

He kissed her forehead. “At least you come back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for my novel length comment section that you are free to disregard. 
> 
> I thought about the peculiarities of such a pregnancy the entire time I was writing this. Of course I did. For instance I don’t think they would ever have another child. The risk is too great. Like what if Hannah died while Henry was already pregnant? What on Earth would even happen? It doesn’t sound safe. Although it would be funny if they had two children that then happened to die at the same time. And for the duration of that particular life they jokingly call themselves twins. lol.
> 
> It’s just something different to think about. And I do so love different things.
> 
> I have no delusions of a constant relationship between Henry and Adam. It’s illogical to think they would be around each other for eternity, would WANT to be. So they probably drift apart often. In an open relationship, as Adam said. But I think they would always come back together if Hannah died. Not just so Adam could cut Henry open at the end but... I dunno. It feels like something that would cause them to drift back. It’s a somber occurrence, the death of a child. And then a happy one to play with a baby again!
> 
> It wasn’t until I was proofreading that I realized........ Oh. Yep. I... yeah, I totally did kill a small child. I did do that. I was so preoccupied ignoring her death because of its irrelevance that I never stopped and thought... No, but... yep, she did die in that river. So... that’s dark. My bad.
> 
> Oh, but I could always go darker. And sadder. Good thing I’m stopping it here. Cause imagine Hannah being reborn. And when she’s three-years-old her memories start coming back, slowly. But something doesn’t feel right. Something’s missing. Then one day she thinks to ask where Abe is and Henry starts crying. Died when she was a baby and not cognizant enough to say goodbye to her brother. Too sad.
> 
> Really her immortality would become a worse curse than Henry or Adam’s over time. A mature mind often in a child’s body. (Interview with the Vampire much? lol.) Eventually she would become more cynical, closer to Adam than Henry. And Henry would cherish her times as a baby/toddler even more, somewhat dreading when her memory comes back and she resents him. I think eventually he would shoot himself with the pistol, for her sake, so she wouldn’t have anywhere to go next time she died and could finally find rest. But... oops. The gun doesn’t actually work. Eeh.
> 
> Anyway yeah. Definite potential for darkness and sadness. Good thing I finished right here, on a relatively happy note.


End file.
